Four days later we reached Lux. During the trip we didn’t talk much and that suited us both. In Lux we parted ways.
You’re on leave until I send for you. I had pleasure voyaging with you, Antonius.”
“I as well with you, Brutus.”
He tapped me on the shoulder and off he was to the Cohort Temple, while I almost ran to the tavern. When I entered it, it was filled with people, smoke, cheer and the smell of beer. Lucius, the owner, stopped me before I ascended the stairs to my room.
“I have letters for you!” He handed me a bag with two scrolls.
“Thank you, Lucius. Any word from Nicola?”
“No, she hasn’t been around,” he shrugged his shoulders and went back to serving the customers. I climbed the stairs and opened my room. It was cold, so the first thing I did was build a fire. I waited for a bit for the room to get warm and then finally sat down and opened the bag. The first letter was from Marius.
My Dear (ho ho ho!) Antonius,
I’m on leave for one month. I tried to find you in the Cohort Temple, but was told you live in a tavern now. You of all the people, ha ha! Supposedly you’ll return from the trip with your knighted officer any day now. Come look for me when you return. I’m stationed in the Temple, room number seventy-five.
Marius
Next letter was from Nicola:
Dear Antonius,
I’ve decided to stay in Stelarium for an indefinite time. My cousin and I are starting a business selling Dwarven tobacco. But it’s not just that. I’ve had it with Lux. One too many bad memories. And with you being absent all the time, it doesn’t make sense for me to dwell within ill thoughts. New surroundings do me good. I do miss you though and hope our paths will realign once again in the future. Please write to me.
Yours, Nicola
The last letter shook me more than I wanted to admit. Even made me somewhat angry. Somehow Nicola represented a safe harbor in a whirlwind of world’s insanity. I understood her motivation, but it put me in a bad mood nonetheless. I felt abandoned. I threw both letters in the fireplace and decided to go to bed, despite only being late afternoon. I slept untill morning. When I woke up, it was cold in the room. I got dressed, went downstairs for breakfast and then returned to my room. I decided I’d had enough of the Happy Duck tavern. I threw my belongings into my traveler’s bag and went downstairs. Lucius was behind the counter wiping a mug.
“Lucius, this is it! Time to say goodbye,” I spread my hands theatrically.
“Oh, no! I like having you here. How come you’re leaving?”
I shrugged my shoulders and explained:
“I have to visit home, Nicola’s not here and soon I’ll be away from Lux. So… Thank you for everything though. How much do I owe you?”
“Yes, let’s see…” He took a scroll from the bottom drawer and looked.
“Five denarii.”
I gave him the money and he pocketed it. Then we said goodbye.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I was nervous while walking towards home. I knew my mother would sniff out the torment of my thoughts and I had a hard time imagining how to merge the two worlds. One of past and of simple things, like my brother’s wedding, my mother’s nagging. And one of present, full of fast changes, ill fates and disgusting politics. I was tired, numb even. I passed Marius’s house and wondered if he had visited at all. I doubted it. The trees on their yard were barren and sad. I continued the walk. When I caught the sight of our house in the distance I felt odd. As if I was a ghost of sorts. As if I was no more and was watching a painting from a story that someone told me I was part of many ages ago. I knocked on the door only to annoy my mother. I knew she’d scold me again for knocking and I’d laugh. But it was my father who answered the door and immediately my stomach was in knots. He was glad to see me.
“Antonius!” he screamed and hugged me, but with awkwardness. My father, deep down, cared for us all, that much I knew. But he was obnoxiously selfish and stubborn and fiercely desired praise. I knew his parents were odd, miserable creatures, trapped in a loveless marriage. But still I had a hard time imagining what exactly made him the man he was. And I missed my father and saw a great tragedy in his ill, sometimes even violent ways.
“Hello, father,” I said while we still held each other embraced. We let each other go and sat down at the table.
“How is everything!? You write so little and when you do, it’s only to your mother, you never write to me personally!” he shook his finger which I immediately wanted to break.
“Well, mother is the one who’s always home. You being on the road all the time,” I answered with cynicism. He didn’t catch it.
“That’s true. So how is everything, are you enjoying your life in the Cohort? Mother told me you’d be returning from a diplomatic trip around Helena any day now. Such an adventure! She even mentioned Orcs?!”
“That was months ago. Yesterday I came back from a trip to Attica… I do like being on the move, yes. But it’s very different from what I imagined.”
“Well, yes… It’s good to see you! As long as you’re here, I need your opinion on something. There’s a new line of business I’m involved with. I invested five hundred denarii. I’ll triple my investment in a month!”
“What is it? It’s a bad time for investing with everything that’s going on politically.”
He didn’t hear the second sentence.
“You ever heard of Palana?”
“I have, I think… It’s some flower from Kemet, I think?”
“You’re correct! You see, I knew you’d know what I’m talking about. Your mother and brother are all skeptical and pessimistic. But they haven’t even heard of the bloody thing! Well, a year ago a trader from Arabor started importing Palana bulbs to Vetulonia. And people have gone mad for them! The price keeps going up and up and up!”
“How much have you bought? Five hundred denarii is quite a lot of coin. You could buy a small apartment in Lux for that kind of money!”
“Follow me,” he said with a smirk of a naughty boy. We stood up and he led me to the kitchen, where he opened the cabinet from which he took out a box. He put the box on the table and opened it. Three bulbs. There were three bulbs in the box. My eyes widened while he chuckled at my bewildered face.
“Three bulbs? You gave five hundred denarii for three bulbs of some flower?” I still couldn’t believe it. I knew that he was an idiot, but not an idiot of that magnitude.
“And already I doubled my money! In merely two weeks, Antonius! Imagine that! Three bulbs. That’s it.”
“Sell them!”
“Not yet.”
“Sell! Them!”
“No, the price will go higher, we’d be throwing away money.”
“Sell them!”
“This has huge potential.”
“Father, WAR is upon us! War costs money, which means trade will suffer, which means people won’t be able to afford these... Trivial idiocies!”
“So you think I should sell them?”
“Yes!!”
“They have huge potential.”
“You said. You already doubled your money. Potential achieved.”
“The price could go higher.”
“Or not. It can drop to nothing in a matter of days.”
He disliked my words. It wasn’t greed that motivated my father for such antics. It was praise that might originate from earning vast amounts of money. That was my father’s main purpose of life, to gain recognition of what he perceived to be a brilliant mind. Now, my father wasn’t dumb, quite the opposite. He knew how to earn money (he had a construction business), but did not know what precisely to do with it. So most of the time he kept investing in silly ideas and scams, going in and out of debt with dubious people. The latter caused us all much grief.
“It won’t drop, that’s impossible. The price will correct itself in time to come, but it will never drop to nothing,” he kept going. I gave up.
“Where’s mother?”
“Oh, she went to visit aunt Servilia, she’ll return tomorrow I think. It’s good for her to finally step out of the house. And your brother is in Stelarium, with his betrothed… I can’t remember her name. Is it Camila?”
“I’ll be on my way then, I have some business at the Cohort Temple. Tell mother I was here and give her my best.”
“My son,” he said over emotionally and then embraced me for a moment until letting go, “Soon we’ll all be rich!” he grinned.
I almost ran back to Lux.