by Mira Zamin
After six days of excruciating riding (she genuinely thought her backside would never be the same again), Calista arrived home with the dawn. She suppressed a saddle-sore groan. From neck to thighs, she ached with the strain of their journey. Hidden by a thatch of woods, she stood with Hadrian and Claudius, surveying Portus Tarrus.
Her horse impatiently pawed at the ground and Calista gently guided her towards a flush of brittle leaves. She rubbed her arms to warm them against the pink-gold chill of dawn. Portus Tarrus seemed no different than before, more real than it had been in memory. Its smallness shocked her after the grandeur of Atlantis: despite the immensity of the Circus Maximus and the Coliseum, this was a town populated with modest homes, not opulent palaces.
“Alright, Hadrian, you recall the plan?” Calista asked, massaging warmth and blood into her face.
He rolled his eyes. The burn had nearly disappeared but for a certain sheen and redness which would vanish with time. It was better than any of them could have hoped and was solely due to his divine inheritance. “Yes, Calista. I am an outsider and I am asking for news. Subtly. I go into a tavern and I make conversation. It should not be too difficult considering that I am an outsider.” Despite his sarcasm, Calista thought she sensed a hint of tenderness—but she did not dwell on it.
“I just want the two of you to know that you have absolutely no need to do this. It is amazing of you but…you do not have to,” she finished lamely. Calista had made this speech to them almost every day after leaving the hut. She realized that without their help, her task would rise a few notches on the scale of impossibility but she would not let them risk their lives without letting them know, repeatedly, that they were under no obligation to her. The thought of them dying violently for her benefit flooded coldly through her veins.
Claudius and Hadrian exchanged glances and, as a duo, ignored her. Holding the reins of Hadrian’s horse as he hopped down, Calista said, “We will be off the main road, by the beach. If you head towards the sun you will come to an odd outcropping of rocks, which is mostly hidden from view.” Calista had a sudden image of the place. It was where she and Claudius had met, secretly, that first time, a location laden with brief fragments of memory: a laugh, a flash of golden hair, a tender touch.
Claudius thumped Hadrian on the back. “Good luck.”
She was somewhat taken aback by the…friendliness that had sprung up between Hadrian and Claudius of late, but she did not begrudge it in the slightest.
Thrusting the memories away, she added to Hadrian, “Make sure you sell the horse for a good price and with that whatever weapons seem casual enough to purchase and food. For a horse like this,” Calista ran her eye over the bay. “You should at the very least go for forty-five aureii, those are the gold ones, although I do not know who would have that much. Perhaps Avaritus. Oh the irony! Please try to sell the horse to one of his agents.” Calista clapped in delight. “And if you are not back by sunset, Claudius will come to find you.”
Claudius looked at her sharply. “Leaving you alone?”
Sighing impatiently, Calista replied, “Yes, leaving me alone on the beach where I grew up. But since Claudius is so worried about it, Hadrian, do not be late.” She could appreciate his concern, but gods, she was a grown woman, not a babe in need of a nursemaid.
“I will certainly try,” he said dryly and then loped off, disappearing beneath the shadow of the hill.
As Hadrian finally and completely vanished below the horizon and into the town, Calista turned to Claudius. “Let’s go.”