Odd Days
A few weeks ago I was dying with the need to push myself to write again. Now it seems that's all I do. And I don't think I've been this content in a long time. And I certainly feel less like I want to crawl into a hole and day. Not a good feeling, I don't recommend it. On the other hand, I feel less connected to the world around me. I suppose, that's what it's like being a writer in the middle of a work. You probably have to detach yourself a little in order to keep the frame of mind you need to write. Unfortunately I haven't focused on any one project.. So that's something I'll have to work on.
Anyway, here's something I was working on the other night. It's for a role play game based on Roman history. I think taking place around 130 BC.. or something like that.. It's basically an introductory post for my character, who is the daughter of a wealthy plantation (what they called latifundias back then) owner.
The Mediterranean sun gilded the clear sky with domineering rays that pierced into every shadow of every cranny in the earth. It muted the green and yellow tones of the fields and vegetation with a haze that even seemed to damper the steady sound of the horses’ hooves striking packed dirt, the tumbling of the wagon’s great wooden wheels and the incessant buzzing of flies that plagued the horses’ hindquarters despite vengeful swatting tails. She could feel the heat bearing down on the nape of her neck and through the thin white fabric of her loose clothing.
Cyriaca sat on the front seat of the wagon like so much silent baggage, her body bouncing on the hard board beneath her with every rut and lump in the road. The girl was barely a wisp of humanity. Men that saw Cyriaca would exclaim that she was in fact a nymph or some earth-bound shade, and she did little to contradict her accusers, but persisted in haunting groves against her mother’s pleas, and had the habit of appearing suddenly in unexpected places. For now she materialized on the dusty road to Rome, wearing on her face the solemn look of an older woman though she had barely passed the cusp of true maturity. Her abundance of dark wavy hair was tamed into a bundle atop her head and her lily skin was painted with a sheen of grime kicked up over miles of travel. She stared out at the world with the large, dark eyes, worrying her plush lips with her teeth and said nothing.
Her reticence was just as well with the man driving the two-horse wagon. He was her father’s servant, gray-headed and lean from years of loyal service. When his pale, sunken eyes were not trained on the road ahead, they darted to the east and the west, surveying everything but her. The taciturn twist of his meager mouth did not invite any attempts on her part to strike up a conversation with the man known to her since memory could stamp its shadow images on her mind. She did not begrudge him his solitude, but allowed herself to be distracted by the scenery that unfurled ponderously beyond the crest of each small mound the horses’ hooves pounded reproachfully for the increased taxation on their strength.
They passed vineyards splayed over rolling hills, coating them in tangles of beryl and russet whose serene quietude refused to be interrupted by the clangor of their passing. When an orchard of olive trees assigned to a gently slopping valley became the sole backdrop for Cyriaca’s thoughts, it performed the inevitable service of installing another pang of homesickness in her breast. She gasped back a quiet sob and dropped her wide doe’s eyes to her lap where she crushed the letter written by her father’s hand in her small fist.
The contents of that letter gave the details of Cyriaca’s flight from her home and their father’s request that her brother Marcus should play her guardian until such a time as it was safe for her return. Cyriacus Valerius maintained that his pride in his second eldest son, Marcus, surged with every tiny bit of news heralding his successes in military life, and that he bedded no doubts that Marcus should prove as heroic and efficacious as their benefactor and ancestor Liberius Valerius, without whom the family would never have risen to their exulted status, bolstered up by his spoils of war. He also explained that Caius, who was accompanying Cyriaca would be at Marcus’ disposal, as well as the supplies and fresh produce from the farms found in the back of the wagon.
Cyriacus continued in his neat, calm hand to expound on the incidents of the illness that cast Cyriaca out of their home. It struck the youngest child, Aurelius, first and then little Luciana shortly thereafter. The malady began as a blistering fever that drained the blood from its victim’s face and the luster from the eyes. A cough rattled in the lungs as if they were made of thin rice paper, and the listless body refused to move, but reclined in a languor uninterrupted by a moment of restorative sleep. Anything that passed through the invalid’s lips, swelled and tainted with a sickly green hue, returned quickly as a repugnant bile. Just as a strange rash became apparent, festering beneath the children’s arms, their mother Lucia succumbed to the disease for she had spent many hours beside the children’s beds in vain attempts to ease their suffering. There was little relief from the symptoms and the illness took only days to insinuate itself into a new, unwilling host. Within a week, Cyriaca was the only one who had managed to evade falling sick because much of her time was spent outside of the house, wandering the fields where the slaves toiled, unaware of her presence.
That was how she came to be banished from their land where olive trees grew in militant rows with branches that twisted up for the touch of the brazen sunlight and bore plentiful fruit that would be cultivated for its rich oils. The doors to their atrium-style home, Cyriacus’ pride of all he owned, were locked, opened only by servants to bring supplies to the unfortunate family. Even the sun declined to shine into the sprawling courtyard and cast the statues and carefully tended shrubs into solemn shadow. As more family members and even some servants were stricken, windows normally thrown open wide to invite any stray breeze were shuttered fast and an ominous gloom descended upon the jewel of the Valerius’ prosperous lands.
Already she could miss the splash of sunlight creeping through the eastern windows of her chamber to wake her with caresses of warmth. The din of her father’s boisterous laugh and the cool, comforting touch of her mother’s hands were being left farther and farther behind. She wished to be in the courtyard with her younger siblings, teaching them a new game, or discussing a piece of literature with her eldest brother Liberius. How lifeless he had looked, his large, muscular body draped limply on his couch. She had caught a glance at him through an open window before it snapped shut in her face by his wife.
Cyriaca missed her home dreadfully. And she had been gone merely two days.
Thus far, her journey with Caius, her silent companion, had been painfully uneventful, and she eagerly anticipated any breaks in their sturdy, plodding movement to stretch her legs and ease her rump sore from the unyielding board of their hastily contrived transportation. Every hour she through up new ways to steel herself for when she would meet Marcus, to prevent throwing herself into his arms and weeping like a nescient babe.
My next post.. will contain my very first poll. Which will get few responses because I don't know many people. Mwha