by Mira Zamin
Daughter of the Sea
Mira Zamin
Copyright 2010 by Mira Zamin
Copyright © 2011 by Mira Zamin
Cover design by Mira Zamin
Cover image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: Leisure Hours (oil on canvas), John William Godward (1861-1922)
“The Odyssey” by Homer translated by Richmond Lattimore Copyright © 2007. Published by Perennial Classics.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be distributed or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the author.
But even so, what I want and all my days I pine for is to go back to my house and see my day of homecoming. And if some god batters me far out on the wine-blue water, I will endure it, keeping a stubborn spirit inside me, for already I have suffered much and much hard work on the waves and in the fighting. So let this adventure follow.
—Homer’s The Odyssey
Year of the Consulship of Lollius and Lepidus
PART I: TERRONENSIS
CHAPTER I
The salty wind tugged at her robe, twining the water-heavy wool around her legs. Both the ocean and sky were a foreboding iron grey, but she was undeterred. Cool gusts teased tendrils of golden hair, chanting her name longingly: Calista, Calista. Caught in the trance of the rhythmic waves, she felt herself yanked into the embrace of the water. The sand slid from beneath her feet and she was falling, falling…
“Caly!” The exclamation broke through her reverie. Her eyes snapped open as she caught her balance. She returned to reality as gently as a gull’s downy feather floating into to the sea.
“Come here! Look at what I’ve caught!” commanded the voice from across the gravelly expanse of beach.
“Coming, Pyp!” Her thoughts clearing, she bounded towards the dark-haired boy clutching a net. Pebbles crunched beneath her sandals. “Well, what have you caught here?” Calista asked, brushing away agitated strands of hair.
He thrust the finely woven net towards her and presented his prize: a small mussel twisted in the threads of the mesh, its violet interior apparent. Despite the meager nature of his trophy, Pyp’s tanned face glowed with the bright pride of accomplishment.
With a grin, Calista congratulated her younger brother and ruffled his curls affectionately. Her fingers glided through their cool silkiness.
“And, look Calista, look! I found something beautiful!”
“W-where did you get that?” she gasped. Her hands reaching for it instinctively, of their own volition. He held before her a largish circular pendant, set with midnight blue lapis lazuli flecked with gold. It was not that the pendant was particularly fine—she owned finer lovely jewels—but something about the delicate work, the shape of the locket, resonated with her, thrummed in her blood, like a drum pounding a long-forgotten beat.
“In the net!” he exclaimed.
“Might I hold it?” Her hands were still outstretched, soft palms turned upward.
“Of course.” After a moment’s pause and a burst of heady generosity, he added, “It’s yours.”
“Oh, Pyp! Thank you!” Gently, she took the locket and clenched it in a tight fist. It felt...right. She raised the pendant against the silver clouds, marveling at its subtle inlay. Her fingers tried to pry the clasp open but it stuck; she did not pursue it further but instead embraced Pyp.
With clear impatience, Pyp suffered through the hugs, anxiously squirming away once Calista’s hold loosened. “Calista, Mother and Father will worry if we stay out much longer—it’s nearly evening.”
“Of course Master,” Calista acquiesced dryly, even bobbing a small bow. She strung the pendant on a chain next to her gold bulla as a temporary measure. It clinked merrily against the amulet.
They waded through the sand, laughing companionably, age barriers disintegrating with the darkening sky. It was conscious, this crumbling, for they were approaching an end of times. Within a week, Pyp would be celebrating his seventh birthday, marking his foray into a world of learning that would prepare him for a senatorial career in Rome and then to perhaps be appointed by the Senate to his father’s place as Governor of Terronensis for the honor of the great emperor Augustus Caesar. Or, if he had his way, pursue a career harassing and fooling innocent bystanders.
As for Calista, marriage was an ever-looming prospect, which was becoming more tangible with every instant. Their mother’s handmaids were scandalized that Calista was sixteen and not even betrothed; many of her girlhood friends had been married in the last few seasons. It astounded those women that her father had wealth, power, and she had some modicum of beauty—and that would flee soon, they warned—and yet she remained unwed. Calista had tried several times to explain that at a recent sixteen she just was not prepared and her father respected that decision—to some extent. They clucked and paid no attention to her protestations, and instead complained about the sheer expectations of the youth these days, and, yes, the foolishness of the proconsul Lucretius to let his eldest have her will on such an important issue. Nonetheless, she knew she would not be able to stall the inevitable for much longer. For that matter, she did not even know if she wanted to.
“In my day,” had huffed one of the handmaids, as she folded the laundry a few days prior, “a girl was lucky to see her fiancé before the wedding. To choose him!” She had exchanged darkly significant looks with the other maids but Calista had merely chortled and left the room. As if their day had been so very different from her own.
Pyp and Calista had only this one week. After, they would go their separate ways: he with his progressing studies and she with her own life. The fork was approaching rapidly and it would two worlds where there had only been one.
“Guess what Calista! Guess!” Pyp chanted eagerly, jarring her from her musing once again. “Guess, guess, guess!”
“Um, you saw Apollo this morning pulling his own chariot like an ass?”
“Calista!” Pyp gasped, scandalized. A small hand covered his rosebud mouth. “What would the pontifix say?”
“I’m not going to tell them, and neither are you.“ She grinned conspiratorially.
Pyp giggled at his sister’s brazenness. Everyone thought that Calista was so good (though headstrong). He knew better. She was scandalous. She swore freely, and she would run on the beach with her stola pulled up past her knees and say devilish things like “To Hades with the pontifix!”
“No! ” he exclaimed. “Someone’s coming.” Eagerly, he waited for her to ask him who was coming but she remained silent. A smile played around her lips. Every so often, she slid a mock-sly glance in his direction.
Finally, Pyp could bear his silence no more. He burst out, “Traders! Traders are coming tomorrow!”
“Traders? Do you recall when the group a few months ago brought that huge cat from Africa? A leopard.” She shuddered delightedly at the memory of the horrific roaring beast. “They said those places were even more uncivilized than Gaul!”
Pyp jigged excitedly on the sand, his tunic beating at his knees to the rhythm of the wind. “Yes, and mother wouldn’t let me keep it!”
Calista snorted incredulously, loosening her hair and allowing it to wave behind her. Her palla looped carelessly about her arms. “The slaves would have fled from fear and the floor would have been covered with their...defecations...”
“Defecations?” repeated Pyp, perplexed.
“Oh, you know what I mean!” Calista giggled. “Don’t make me say it Pyp!”
Pyp stared at her blankly.
“Oh, very well: Shi—”
“Ahhh!” Pyp giggled. His older sister was a very bad girl.
She scooped a handful of gravel off the beach. It scratched her hands as it sifted through her
fingers and hit the ground like soft raindrops. “Are they coming by land or sea?” Calista asked. Because of the great amounts of salt and wine produced in the region, strangers, with their novel ways and interesting looks, were steadily becoming a more common sight. Merchants especially flooded the city. But each ship brought with it new people and new stories and despite the frequency of their arrivals, the anticipation never lost its shine.
“By sea, and they are coming from Punic! The third group this Aprilis, right Caly?” Pyp twisted in the air, excited to impart information to his older sister whose knowledge he considered to border on omniscience.
“Punic! There is nothing in Punic,” Calista laughed. “We destroyed the Punici centuries ago!”
Pyp stuck his tongue out of a corner of his mouth and rolled his eyes up to the grey sky in thought. “Oh, sorry, not Punic then...I think my tutor was talking about them yesterday,” he explained utterly without embarrassment.
“You should pay more attention to your lessons!” she admonished, waggling her finger at him in a fair imitation of their nursemaid, Nuala. “Hmm…I believe I can convince father to buy me a new gold chain. I can put your lovely present on it.” She ruffled his hair again.
He looked up at her with keen disinterest.
They entered the villa’s courtyard, where slaves bustled around, occupied with their tasks. Two native maids carted around baskets of laundry, and a handful of urchins played a game with old dice, wagering stones. They called out to Pyp who was eager to scamper off but Calista held on fast to his hand.
Portus Tarrus had been home for many years and Calista warmed fondly at the villa’s lavish Corinthian columns, which swooped past her and seemed to emerge again somewhere between the clouds. They led her gaze into the courtyard, paved with large, smooth flagstones, and then to the ornate fountain that spouted fresh water from a deep spring. The massive white manse was almost a wholly new construction. To her, it possessed none of that air of state that she associated with the Greek Parthenon that she had seen four years ago before her father had received the posting in Terronensis from the Senate. It felt comfortable, a home now.
“Nicetius Tertillius Volusus!”
Pyp scowled at his name. Calista could read his thoughts on his face: Who wants a name like Nicetius Tertillius Volusus?
“Calista Tertillia Volusus! Where have the two of you been? The whole household is in upheaval searching for you rascally louts. If the village seer-woman had told me I was to be charged with taking care of two scamps like you, I would have run away years ago!” It was their nurse, Nuala.
Rascally lout. Calista snorted. If not a “wife,” then why not that? she thought.
“One of the Emperor’s men has come, and on important business too. The two of you must get ready!” A native of Gaul, Nuala, hustled them past the courtyard and into the warm atmosphere of their home. A thin woman, she still managed to induce within her charges more terror and adoration than the presence of Augustus himself would have inspired.
They entered, not by the formal entrance, but through a side door which led to a curving staircase. Bright tiles with captions in stately gold-leafed Latin lined the steps. The floors and walls were worked with glimmering glass and gleaming stone: and these mosaics were produced by Portus Tarrus’ own tileworks. Calista breathed a sigh at the chill air inside. Ventilated by many windows, the villa was kept cool in the summer by the gardens’ shade. It sprawled grandly, leading to numerous wings which were all connected by the atrium. Just as all roads led to Rome, all corridors led to the atrium.
Dashing up the stairs, Calista absently ran her fingers against the wall—the mosaics were smooth and jagged by turns— until the skin of her finger snagged on a tile. With a small yip, she stuck her finger in her mouth. The salty taste of blood flooding her tongue, she entered her room, located in a snug corner on the top floor. One of the finest rooms in the villa, the mosaics showed in vivid color the Seven Hills of Rome where she and her family had resided before moving to Terronensis.
Luxuries from all around the Empire littered the chamber’s fine furniture. A delicate jewel box of fragrant of sandalwood sat on the dresser; a Greek statuette of Poseidon rested on a desk; scrolls of Homer’s Odyssey and Hesiod’s The Works and Days were crammed into shelves. In the corner of her room, where the sunlight was best, stood a loom upon which a half-woven piece, depicting Ariadne battling the Minotaur sagged; Theseus was notably absent. Just above the loom and out of a gleaming glass window, unfolded a magnificent view of the evanescent ocean. The glass was uneven and blurry but the dusky silver of the sea still shined through. The manor was built away from the faulty foundations of the sand and if Calista strained, not only could she see the sea but also the Circus Maximus, the Baths, and the Pantheon of Portus Tarrus.
Calista extracted the sandalwood box, carved with vines twisting until each separate step was indeterminable, from a heap of rubbish on the table. When she opened it, the failing daylight refracted off the jewels: amethyst, sapphire, emerald, gold. She placed the locket inside and softly closed the box.
CHAPTER II