Once Upon a Hero: Tales of Love Throughout History

by C. N. Bird

  Once Upon a Hero

  Tales of Love Throughout History

  Four stories

  By

  C.N. Bird

  Samantha Holt

  Lily Magee

  Em Taylor

  Copyright 2014 ©C.N. Bird, Samantha Holt, Lily Magee, Em Taylor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Pompeii

  C.N. Bird

  100 A.D. Neapolis

  “I was lucky to escape with my life. Unlike so many others who took the time to gather belongings while the earth quaked beneath our feet, I listened to your avus—and above all my instincts—to get out of there as fast as I could, taking my younger frater with me. This was not the first time, however, my city of Pompeii had been so volatile.”

  Hadriana looked off into the distance, her arms wrapped around her neptis, whose chestnut hair hung around her shoulders and who was swinging her legs as she listened to her grandmother talk.

  “Had I not listened to my heart, neither of you would be here today.”

  “Avia,” her nepos said, “what do you mean it wasn’t the first time?”

  “Come here, my dear Celsus.” She opened one of her arms and invited her other grandchild to sit upon her lap. “I was just a little older than you are now, aged eight years and life was blessed. My father worked as a fisherman most days, and the days he wasn’t out to sea he was helping out around the city, helping the blacksmiths or some of the other merchants. I frequently went with my mother out to the fields to gather the grains that we would take back to the city center and roll into dough to make bread.

  She sighed. “It was a day like that that changed the world for me, for all of us, really.”

  ***

  February 5th 62 A.D.

  I was walking with my mother through the olive trees back toward town when the earth beneath our feet started to rumble and roll. My mother pulled me close, dropping to the ground to protect me with her body in case a tree fell. Thankfully no trees fell, but the olives were shaken from their branches and fell with soft thuds against the ground.

  After the quake finished several moments later, we stood and looked into the far distance toward our city, Pompeii, to see buildings still crumbling down, and smoke rising from within the city walls.

  “Marcus,” I barely heard my mother whisper, and we were running as fast as my little legs would allow. Midway from the olive trees to the city, the earth quaked again and my mother let out a piercing scream.

  “What is it, mater?”

  “Your pater, he was in the city today, not on the boats.”

  I looked back, away from my mother’s crying face, at the city that now seemed so far away. Somewhere in there was my father, dead or alive; we wouldn’t know until we got back and began to search.

  We started a full run again and eventually made it back to town. The city was far worse than we thought; hardly anything stood anymore, only the smaller buildings of the town. My mother dropped me off at our home, which surprisingly still stood. She left shortly afterward to go toward the market in the center of the city where my father was helping with wool for the day.

  Night soon came and, being so young, I didn’t want to light the oil lamps for fear of bringing more devastation to the city by burning something else down. A shadow appeared in the doorframe, however, and offered me solace for the night.

  “Hadriana, you should come next door to have some dinner and wait. You shouldn’t be alone right now, hungry and waiting in the cold.”

  Victus, my closest friend and a few years older than me, came closer, coaxing me up. I made my way to him and he threw an arm around me, pulling me close. I welcomed his body heat as it was quite cold in the house. “You know everything is going to be all right; your pater is a strong man. I’m sure he and your mother are just helping clear some debris.”

  That wasn’t the case. I ended up falling asleep a short time after I ate, and right before dawn, I heard my mother’s voice, strained and muffled. I sat up where I’d fallen asleep to see the neighbor lady holding my mother as she cried into her shoulder. Seeing her like that without my father only meant one thing. I got up and walked to her, my hands going around her waist and I cried, I cried for my mother who’d just lost the man she loved and was her world, and for me, knowing that I would never hear my father’s laugh again or be comforted by his arms. I started when I felt arms go around me, but was soon comforted by the warmth of my friend, Victus.

  The next few weeks passed in a blur. The dead were led through town by procession out into the fields beyond the city. Wine and fruit was left around the pyres, and a month after the devastation, the bodies were burned at sundown.

  The city of Pompeii, however, was nowhere near done with cleaning and reconstruction. Almost everything crumbled in the quake. What further set people back were the changes in professions. My mother could no longer sustain us by picking olives or making wines and breads. I frequented the neighbor’s house nightly, playing with Victus and helping his mother while my mother visited the Lupanar, the city’s most famous brothel. While it didn’t pay much, she was compensated with food a lot.

  Two months after she began working there she became pregnant, and nearly nine months later she gave birth to my brother, Marcus. The father of my brother was a traveling guard, so while he didn’t stay with us, he did pay us handsomely to keep food on our plates and a roof over our heads.

  In the winter of 69 A.D., my life, and now my brother’s, was further rocked. Our mother became sick; as the months passed she became more and more frail, to the point that the Lupanar even told her not to come back. Then one morning I woke up and went to join my mother by the fire in the living room. I found her wrapped in a blanket; her eyes were opened and unmoving. I knelt beside her, closed her eyes and covered her with the blanket.

  I took my brother next door and told our neighbor what had happened, and she sent Victus with me to help remove the body and prepare it for burial. Much like my father and the other victims, my mother met the same fate and my brother and I were alone in the world.

  The money from my brother’s father kept coming in, but when he visited in 72 A.D. and found my mother had passed, it stopped. I was forced to abandon schooling and work in the fields for longer hours. When that wasn’t supplying us with the money and food we needed to survive, I confided in Victus.

  “I do not know what to do, Victus, I am at a loss.”

  “What options do you have?” Victus crossed the distance to sit down next to me and put an arm around me, pulling me close to him.

  “The Lupanar.”

  “No,” he said defiantly, pulling me further into an embrace that included both arms. “I will not allow my closest friend to whore herself for food and little money.”

  “I have no other choice. We need food, we need a home, and we cannot live on the streets.”

  “You can be awfully foolish you know that?”

  I folded my arms across my chest, and pulled myself away from Victus “How is anything that I am saying foolish? I have to take care of my brother.”

  “Where have you always gone and sought shel
ter throughout our lives?”

  “With you and your mother,” I said quietly, realizing what he was about to say.

  “Is there any reason to think you cannot find solace there now?”

  I shook my head. “I cannot; it’s too much to ask.”

  “And you’re not asking; I am telling you. I make a decent living working on the boats. You and my mater can easily work in the market or the fields for a little extra money, it will be fine.”

  “What is she going to say about Marcus and me moving in?”

  “She’s going to welcome you with open arms, as I’ve already discussed it with her and she’s been preparing for your arrival.”

  “All right, so long as she knows about it and is happy to have more mouths to feed, I’ll start moving our belongings over.”

  Marcus and I moved in within a month. As the years went on, Victus showed Marcus how to fish, and when he turned fourteen, Marcus was out there regularly with him, fully living the life of a fisherman, while I went with Victus’ mother out to the fields to prepare olives.

  When I turned twenty-four, however, something changed in me toward Victus. I’d seen him come and go with women and it never really affected me. I was bothered though, when he came home late one evening smelling like wine and with his hair dishevelled.

  “How was your night?” I said, hearing the note of jealousy in my voice.

  “Perfect of course. Rufina, hair darker than the night and eyes like night before the sun rises.”

  “When are you going to actually find someone to love and settle down with? Make your mother proud like she once was before you discovered the brothels.”

  “I have found someone. But, I do not think she would even look at me twice the way I’ve looked upon her, or would think the same thoughts as I do.”

  “Well, whoever she is, rather than speculating, why do you not just tell her, ask her? Take her for a walk around the water, watch the heavens cry. It’s about that time of year for the night showers.”

  Victus was quiet for a moment. I looked up from the dough I was kneading and saw a look on his face I hadn’t seen before. He was looking at me like he wanted to say something. I watched as his lips parted, but he closed them.

  “Maybe I’ll do that soon. Good night, Hadriana.”

  Once he left the room, I wept silently as I went about my duties. Truth was, he was the only man I had an eye for, and had been for a while. There were men here and there that I had kissed, and some wanted to do more, like in the pictures of the Lupanar, but I couldn’t. My life had been hard enough and I didn’t just want to spread my legs for someone for pleasure. Victus was the only man I truly trusted, had always been there for me, and knew me better than my own mother had.

  I had squashed those feelings for too long, letting his adventures with the women of Pompeii not affect me. Now, I had just given him cause to ask the one person he thought of most to watch the showers. I turned my attention back to my weaving that I had been doing when he walked in. Unfortunately, my mind was thinking about him in the arms of another woman that I wasn’t paying attention and gaps began to form. I pulled the weaves out just as I started to cry and threw the basket to the ground. I wept for a long while before I could pull myself together and head to bed for the night.

  The following day I boiled some water and started to take my weekly bath. I pulled my hair out of my braid and disrobed. Taking a cloth, I washed my body with the cooling water, this time though, when I reached my stomach, I let my hand travel further. I was ashamed at what I was doing, something I indulged in rarely. I let my fingers run their course through my hair, dipping a finger in to moisten it with the wetness between my legs.

  I thought about Victus: his body hard from years of fishing, the way his eyes looked when he was mischievous and about to do something to his mother, even the way he looked when he walked into the house after having sex with whores. I wanted to be the one that put that look on his face, to entwine my body with his and make love like a god until he filled me. To watch my body swell.

  My pleasure ripped through me suddenly, quicker than times past and I shoved the cloth in my mouth to muffle my cries. I finished bathing quickly and replaced my robes. I left the commode and squeaked when I saw Victus standing close to the door. I was speechless and panicked, thinking he heard me; no one was supposed to be home.

  He looked me over and came closer to me. “I, uh, left some twine and hooks here; we need them.”

  “Oh, I just finished bathing.

  “I know. I mean, I figured, seeing as your hair is down and you’re in a robe.” He reached up and played with my hair; I blushed at the contact and knew deep down he had heard me.

  “You should wear your hair down more, I like the way it frames your face.”

  ***

  The month came to a close and the night showers started to pick up. The city gathered by the river at night and watched as a group, the real show would be in another couple of days and I enjoyed the time alone away from my second family and Victus.

  “Are you planning on coming down tonight for the showers, Hadriana?” Victus queried, while he and my brother were getting ready to leave.

  “I am not too sure, honestly.”

  “Why?”

  I turned my face downward when I spoke, “I do not think it’ll hold much joy and excitement for me this year.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Victus, in case you haven’t noticed, I have been sort of withdrawn from such events. Most women my age are married and having children. I would rather not see just happiness when my life contains sadness.”

  “You never know, tonight could bring something different; please reconsider.” Victus spoke softly. I looked up just in time to see a look of longing on his face, and realizing he could not persuade me, he went on to join the throngs of people with my brother and I was left with Victus’ mother.

  “You should go, mellita,” she said.

  “I cannot.”

  “Please, humor me and tell me why.”

  “I cannot, and will not, watch him with a woman.”

  “I see.” She smiled softly.

  “I’ve been feeling things for him, stronger than usual—protective. I want to be the one to make him happy; he shouldn’t have to seek that kind of pleasure from a whore.”

  “Have you spoken of this to him?” His mother came over to me and took the cloth I was folding from my shaky hands.

  Her touched calmed me, and gave me strength to speak. “Not in those terms. He said he was infatuated with someone; I told him to tell her, and tonight would be a perfect setting to do so.”

  “Who’s to say that you aren’t the one he desires? Attraction can go both ways.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Me? My luck is not so great in this world.”

  “What if I knew differently, and that he would be saddened were you not to show up tonight?”

  “As I said, my luck is deplorable. The gods would laugh upon me if I showed up tonight.”

  “Hadriana, as your overseer and your mater’s closest friend, go tonight. Wear your hair down like he likes it.”

  I gave her a look of confusion. “How do you know that?”

  “He talks to me; now go before it’s too late.”

  I couldn’t talk. I washed quickly to get the flour off my body, pulled my hair down and pulled the sides back away from my face. When I reached the door, his mother called to me to stop and she wrapped a cloak around my body.

  “It’s a little chilly out there. Good luck and I wish you well.”

  On my way there, I couldn’t get it out of my head that he could have meant me. He’d never given any indication of such thoughts—granted, I never gave him any clue either—and up until recently kept such thoughts at bay to preserve our friendship.

  One would think finding people in a crowd of hundreds would be difficult, but I quickly found my brother with a few of his friends. Victus was nowhere to be seen.

  “Hadriana,
you came!” my brother said, pulling me into a quick embrace.

  “I’ve been at home long enough, I thought I would join the festivities for once and actually have a good time.”

  I looked around the crowd for a moment, still not seeing Victus. “Marcus, have you seen Victus around at all?”

  “He’s over there talking with Iulia, they seem to be hitting it off well.”

  Glancing in the direction my brother indicated, sure enough there he was talking with a woman, and his body language expressed extreme interest.

  “Oh, all right. Well, I think I am going to make my way toward the back of the crowd and wait out the showers. I’ll see you back at home?”

  “Of course.”

  Saying my goodbyes, I had intended to leave. I felt foolish, foolish for listening to him and his mother, for letting my heart become filled with emotions I had been squashing since the beginning. When I reached the edge of the crowd, a hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  “Where do you think you’re going so fast?” Victus said from behind me.

  His hand on my shoulder was unexpected, and I let out a small scream. After taking a moment to collect myself, I spoke, “Well, when I came here to see you after you invited me, I didn’t want to feel like an intruder since you seemed content when I saw you with Iulia.”

  “Iulia? She’s a friend and nothing more, Hadriana. She’s not the one I’ve been longing for.”

  My heart sped up a bit, but I still refused to believe anything was going to happen between us.

  “Well, cease wasting time, Victus.” I laughed and tried to turn him around toward the ever enlarging groups. “Go and find your girl, have wine and a great night. I’ll be right over here by the tree for the night.”

  I turned, and, instead of going in the direction I had been headed, altered my course toward the tree I told him I’d be under. I’d stay for a little, but leave once the crowd started clearing to avoid seeing him with the woman he desired, so my heart could be saved from another blow.

  His footsteps were stealthy, so much so that I didn’t know he was behind me until I turned back to the people to sit down.