Winter Wonders

[Sara]

Horatia sank into his kiss. How he still made her melt after almost a decade and a half of marriage was beyond her, but the butterflies still lit up her chest at his touch, but she stayed herself. She couldn't go further with him, not here, not without the silphium she needed to prevent another child. She felt a kernel of guilt in her stomach at the thought and it distracted her enough to pull away from the kiss. She had many duties as the wife and daughter of patrician's, of senators, and providing children was one of them. That it was a secret she had never bared to anybody but her bodyslaves made it all the worse, it would be different had Aulus agreed to the plan. 

She shook herself out of her thoughts at his comments, laughable really given what she'd been musing on and shook her head silently; "I'm sure most men think so of their wives, my love." She raised a hand to lightly trace the curve of his cheek. "But, despite your assertions otherwise, I'm positive the women of Britannia and Judea might not be so pleased that they're shown how to run a household neatly." She chuckled and shook her head, "Although granted their husbands probably would be pleased. Such is the lot of women," She said with a wry smile, "To constantly be at one another's throats." Her and her sister were a prime example of that. 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

The kiss didn't last as long as Aulus would have liked it to; Horatia broke it off, perhaps embarrassed to have her slave-girl watch their intimacy. To Aulus, slaves were part of the furnishings, almost; there to run hither and thither as commanded to do whatever they were told that would make their owners' lives more pleasant and comfortable. He paid them as much attention as he did the furniture, on the whole, and it didn't occur to him to be embarrassed to have a slave witness this private moment with his wife.

Yet the moment was cut short as Horatia moved away from him a little, leaving him confused and concerned. "Is everything all right?"

The hand she put to his face was reassuring, though. "That is probably the reason behind a lot of wars - men use weapons where women use words when they end up at one another's throats, and it is often for equally foolish reasons. Perhaps more foolish reasons."

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She'd never considered her husband a hugely observant person (although perhaps that was discrediting), but that he managed to sense that something was wrong embarrassed her. "Yes, everything's fine." She lied with a slight flush to her cheeks. She loathed lying to him, and very rarely did so. Often she simply didn't inform him of things where she considered it trivial, but this situation was a deception. As was keeping what happened on the road to Baiae, all those years ago, to herself. 

"Vastly more foolish reasons." She countered with a chuckle and dropped her hand to the neck of his tunic, "We women see that there are more important things in the world than conquest and glory." She arched a brow at him, gently teasing. Male pride was one of the few facets of their society that amused and infuriated her in equal measure, but fortunately her husband seemed to have been blessed with more sense and humility than most. 

"Besides, where else is there to conquer? The Empire stretches so fa-" She gasped, a sharp inhale of breath. As they had been conversing and kissing the usually bright couple had failed to release they were standing in the path of the incoming tide and its growing waves. "Fuck!" If the profanity that fell from Horatia's mouth sounded peculiar, it was because it was. Usually she reserved such base words for her own internal monologue but as the cold water slammed into her knees before receding - dragging the end of her palla with it, she couldn't keep it in.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sara

[Sharpie]

Aulus was better dressed for the sudden wave than his wife; men's tunics were generally not so long and the garment he was currently wearing reached below his knees. He was also taller than Horatia, so a wave that reached her knees did not have the same effect on his tunic that his had on her stola.

"Perhaps we should retreat in the face of an overwhelming enemy," he suggested, indicating the drier sand further back up the beach. He was unaware that his wife knew such barrack-room language, but wouldn't call her out on it - it would only embarrass her when she realised what she had let slip. "Are you all right - you're not hurt or anything?"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Horatia couldn't contain her squeal at the feeling of the cold water against her legs. "Yes, yes we should..." But her palla was being dragged by the waves that continued to buffet them and she slipped it from her shoulder but between trying to walk back up the beach, feet sinking into the sand and the waves - it slipped through her fingers and ended up in the water - the fabric floating on the surface and being dragged out into the waves. 

She tried to reach it but it was rapidly going beyond her reach. Aulus was still dry, or mostly - the waves hitting the very hem of his tunic, whereas her stola and the tunica underneath were already sodden from the knees down, and rapidly rising. "Don't go soaking yourself," She warned him and released his hands to wade a few paces further into the water, gasping at the cold. She managed to grab the edge of it, but by now was up to her waist and reached out a hand chuckling, for Aulus to help pull her back to shore. 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sara

[Sharpie]

"It is cold, isn't it?" Aulus said, grasping his wife's hand firmly - not hard enough to hurt her, hopefully, but strongly enough to pull her back in. "You are very wet, I think we ought to cut our walk short and get you into some dry clothes. And that can get rinsed out and put to dry somewhere."

Horatia's under-tunica was clinging to her, showing her curves in ways that Aulus rather appreciated but suspected that she would not, especially if there was anyone else around who might see - Hades, Aulus would rather nobody else saw her in this state. He made sure they were on firmer footing above where the waves lapped at the sand before he pulled his pallium off - it was wet at the edges but rather less wet than Horatia's clothing - and offered it to his wife.

"Let's head back before you catch a chill," he said, all levity swept aside. If it were summer, it wouldn't be a problem, but it was not. "I'll get the slaves to light a brazier in your room, you'll soon warm up."

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Horatia felt like all the air had been knocked from her chest from the cold and was grateful to be back on dry-ish land as her husband successfully tugged her from the waves. "Just a bit." She confirmed with a breathless grin, cheeks flushed and fingers flexing to regain some feeling. It wasn't unbearably cold in the water, it had been the shock as she tried to retrieve her lost palla that had done her in. 

For a moment as Aulus unwound his pallium and handed it to her she felt a surge of shame, as if he were embarrassed by her. Even now, since he'd been home almost as long as he'd been away, she sometimes forgot herself. She had grown used to doing things her own way and from her own steam that she occasionally forgot her husband was here to lend support. Still, reflecting, she would have done the same had she paused for a moment; no sense in them both getting drenched in the fresh December waters. 

She wrapped the garment around herself, concealing her soaked stola and undertunica, although now they were both sodden they appeared almost as one garment clinging to her skin, and handed him the bundled, dripping palla which she had gone into the water to retrieve. "That's expensive," She commented to try and lighten the mood - Aulus looking unduly burdened, "Hence the desperate trip to save it from Neptune's grip. I don't want to drain your gold reserves on fashion." She glanced up at him as she finished wrapping, trying to read his mood and stroked a hand on his forearm, "Why so serious? If I catch a chill it's my own foolish doing, and you can play nurse, hmm?"

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"Serious? I think that is my natural state of being, my dove," Aulus said. "Anyway, I would think you would prefer to be indoors warming up than continuing our planned walk when soaking wet. Especially with the breeze - you probably didn't even notice it a moment ago."

He balled her palla up, glancing back over his shoulder in a silent 'attend us!' gesture to the slave, and exchanged the soaking piece of cloth for their sandals.

"I would rather not have to play nurse - I was hoping to have many walks with you while we're here. And other things, very few of which are suitable activities for a sickroom or an invalid recovering from a chill." He wrapped his free arm around her, their sandals hanging by their straps from his other hand. "And you may use my money to buy what you wish - there are few women so restrained in their spending habits as you, I really don't think you will be in any danger of spending everything down to the very last as before the month is out."

 

@Sara

Edited June 19, 2021 by Sharpie

[Sara]

"I don't know about that," She countered with a soft grin, "I've heard plenty of stories from my brother, and Titus Sulpicius via Valeria which suggest you're not always so serious." What Aulus was like with his male friends was an enigma to Horatia, but judging by hangovers of the past and the stories she had heard about, she had a fair estimation. 

She managed to keep the smile on her face, even though she didn't truly mean it, as he spoke again. Maybe a chill would be the best excuse, until she could get back to Rome to get her silphium and once more enjoy her husband in her bed. She sank into his arm as they walked back the way they came along the beach although her pace was leisurely and despite the breeze and the chill on her skin, she wasn't chattering just yet. 

"You make me sound like some frugal, sour old woman who wouldn't dare spend money on herself" She protested with a wry smile, "I'm sure you'd be horrified if you cared to take a look at how much I spend on books and cosmetics and fashion. It costs a lot for a woman to appear as if she's naturally beautiful without any effort." Horatia wasn't one for lead-white skin, wigs and heavy kohl's but nonetheless enhanced her looks as most women did. "Would you rather I spend a small fortune on wigs and the very latest fashions?"

 

TAG: @Sharpie

Edited June 19, 2021 by Sara

[Sharpie]

"Well, you know I could never refuse you anything, books and cosmetics and fashion and anything else that takes your fancy. You have only to ask for something - and plenty of women would have far less restraint than you do, my sweet."

She seemed somewhat reluctant to return to the house, and his pallium was a thicker garment than her now soaking palla and stola were (she presumably had a thicker under-tunic on beneath the stola, but he was getting nowhere with his efforts to discover that).

"You don't need a wig to enhance your beauty, you know. I don't think a wig, or cosmetics, could make you look any more beautiful than you are already." He understood why she arrayed herself in her finest for occasions - he did, too, of course, although he thought that in her case it was more like a soldier putting on his armour before battle. Nothing would ever make her more beautiful in his eyes than she had been in that simple tunica in the garden of that house in Athens, though.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Horatia didn't conceal the roll of her eyes at his comments, but her smile was genuine and soft as she walked slowly back across the beach. "Fine words, no wonder you're to be Consul with that silver tongue."

Despite her joking, she was glad of him and his attentions. She might not have been the nubile seventeen year old he had first met in Athens, or the twenty-five year old young woman he had returned home to after his absence during the Civil War and beyond, but she still felt attractive and for the most part, still felt young now she was thirty-two. She thanked her fastidious regimen of skin creams, exercise and diet for that. 

The winter breeze whipped the edges of the pallium against her legs and she felt a shudder work the way up her spine. Alright, he was right, it was cold. How he had survived Britannia's winters was beyond her, and her pace increased a touch as they walked. She felt content in the silence as they made their way along the beach, Callista a few strides behind and made no move to talk. This is what a decade and a half of marriage felt like; comfort in each other in complete silence. 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

Aulus didn't need to say anything, being able to be silent and simply enjoy someone else's company was something he had missed for many years, and he very much liked being with his wife, sharing space with her. He felt her shiver and tightened his arm around her a little, though not so much he would impede her ability to walk, and tempered his stride to match hers - something that always made him feel a little ridiculous, taking shorter paces than he was used to. 

It wasn't all that long before they reached the villa again, and he had to let her go.

"If you're still chilly when you're in dry clothing, have a brazier lit - I would be surprised if there isn't one anyway, at this time of year," he said, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Horatia sighed a little as he withdrew his arm and they entered the villa. She had goosebumps now and her legs stung with a chill, but she was still in a good humour. "You see? You're already acting the nursemaid." She chuckled and summoned Callista who knelt to undo the straps on her sandals. 

"I'm going to the baths, that will warm me up better than a brazier, and I feel like I have a whole salt mine on my skin." She liked the beach and the feeling of serenity it gave her, but she always returned feeling a little like a woman who had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Which was not the air she usually liked to give off. Callista, having overheard her mistresses statement, hurried off to prepare suitable oils and lotions and potions in the bathing complex situated within the villa as Horatia smiled a soft smile at her husband. "Will you go check on Calpurnia?" She asked her husband as she unwound his Pallium from her body, handing it to a waiting attendant. "See if she's feeling any better? And I'll see you later?" She added with a soft smile, not realising the implication or innuendo in her words.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

 

ignore -double posted

 

@Sara

Edited July 5, 2021 by Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"I will," Aulus said, and gave her a soft, fond smile, the one that he only ever gave his wife, as she smiled at him. "And I will," he said again, quieter. "You don't need a nursemaid, though - I'm sure I would be perfectly vile in that role."

She would return from her bath as perfect and elegantly coiffed as ever, of course, but Aulus treasured the moments between the two of them when she was not that distant elegant creature that everyone envied him for marrying. Oh, he was proud to have her on his arm when she was, but he knew a side of her that nobody else did, as she knew a side of him that he never showed anyone else.

"I will probably be in the garden or the atrium reading once I've had a talk with Calpurnia," he added, if his wife wanted to seek him out again.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Horatia was enveloped in the warm bath within a few moments, submerged and utterly contented. She spent a long, languorous few moments floating before Callista attended to her hair, washing it with some concoction which smelt of roses and lavender, and soaping and scrubbing her with lemon oil.

It was over half an hour later when she finally emerged from her soak and was dutifully towelled by Callista and another house slave who braided her hair in a long plait that hung down her back, its ends still dripping wet and soaking the fabric of her tunica between her shoulder blades. There was no point donning a stola now, not with hours to go until she'd have to dress for dinner and with the other occupants of the house either indisposed or out. 

Instead, she padded in her tunica, with a palla loosely draped over her shoulders through to the garden where she spied her husband. She drew to a stop, leaning against a column, not willing to disturb him for a few moments. When she did, she did so with a light cough to alert him to her presence and a wry smile on her face. "Reading anything particularly fascinating? An account of the Dacian war twenty years ago, perhaps?" She quirked a brow. She still had that tome, the one on the Dacian war that she'd been reading in the garden in Athens when she'd first met him, but it was locked in a strongbox in her own study, a constant reminder of a happy past.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

Aulus looked up from his scroll at Horatia's quiet cough, and smiled. She was leaning against a column (she must have been there a little while befpre drawing his attention), dressed as simply as she always did when it was just the two of them, in a plain tunica, with a palla draped around her against the chill.

"Not Dacia," he said. "Caesar's Gallic Wars." He moved to set the scroll aside; Horatia deserved his full attention, after all. "Are you feeling warmer now?" he asked, making room for her if she wanted to join him on the bench.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

"You know, I've never much taken you for a historian." She said with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. Of course Aulus was well-read, he had the finest education, but out of the pair of them she was very much considered the voracious reader - of any and all subjects. 

Nodding, she padded closer and drew up onto the bench, curling her legs to the side in a relaxed position. The winter sun in here was warmer given the shelter all around them, and the breeze was lessened. "Much, thank you." Wrapping her palla around herself a little more she smiled and nudged him with her foot, "You looked so worried - as if I'd drop dead of a chill on the beach. You know I am not as fragile as a doll, my love." 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"Duly noted," Aulus said. "I shall have my secretary write me a memo - Horatia Justina is not fragile. But can't I treat you as if you were the most precious thing in my house?" He shifted his position beside her until his thigh was pressed against hers, enjoying the proximity and intimacy. "You're not used to the sea in winter, and perhaps I am too used to thinking of a winter sea as icy and frigid? I have little recent experience of any sea that isn't the cold green sea surrounding Britannia, after all, there being no sea between here and Raetia."

He was not a historian, but Caesar on his campaigns in Gaul was a stirring subject - not that he was going to continue to read rather than focus on his wife, who was far more interesting.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Horatia chuckled and shifted as he drew closer, enjoying the feeling of closeness. He was being facetious of course, but it still struck a chord and she challenged him lightly, with mirth in his voice; "You can, of course," She shifted again and extended a leg over his lap. Nobody was around or awake to come and disturb them and see them after all, "But it would serve you well to remember that I weathered six, nearly seven years without you my love." 

She extended a hand to stroke his face, "Not all of which was a bed of roses. I can take care of myself." She reached for his hand and left a soft kiss on his knuckles. She meant it sincerely, although she was unconvinced he would heed her. It seemed his lot in life to worry for his wife, as she suspected was quite right. 

Letting his hand fall back to his lap and her leg she arched a brow, "Did you look in on Calpurnia, as I asked? Is she alright?" 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

 

[Sharpie]

"Weathered?" Aulus adjusted his position to peer at Horatia's face in mock concern. "There's very little sign in your face of any weathering, my dove," he said, and sat back again, resuming his more usual seriousness. "But yes - I am not at all anxious to repeat that sort of separation, and it would not have been for nearly so long if it hadn't been for... everything back here." He did not need to specify any further; she had lost her mother during that tumultuous period, and had never really opened up about what she had been through - although he could understand why. If his presence at home would not have put his family into imminent danger, he would have stayed and done what he could have to support her.

Well, that was all water under the bridge, and they had not suffered too badly in the intervening years. He accepted the change of subject.

"Yes, I did. She is all right, I think, though somewhat worried about it all. I think I relieved her fears over her future, at least." Worries about women's issues were much better left to Horatia and the female slaves than to Aulus, for whom they were as impenetrable as the rituals surrounding Bona Dea, and aroused far less curiosity. "I'm not sure I managed to allay her fears about finding a suitable husband, but at least she isn't so worried about having to find someone in the next six months, or being married off to someone twice her age that she's never met."

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She smiled softly at him. An encouraging word from her father was no doubt a balm for poor Calpurnia. She certainly remembered feeling elated at any words of encouragement from her own father...then again, perhaps Calpurnia was less dependent on the validation that Horatia had craved in her youth. Still, it hadn't done her any harm, given she was now a self-assured woman. 

"That's good," She said softly and shifted so her other leg was also draped over his lap - the very image of relaxation. Every so often a drop of water worked loose from her braid and made her squirm as it fell down her spine, "Marriage is a girls biggest fear you know," she said with a pointed finger, as if dictating a lesson, and then frowned to herself - correcting herself, "Well. Marriage and childbirth. The two absolutes in a woman's life, and the two most petrifying things." She smoothed a smile onto her lips to disguise her unease. Even now - a woman in the prime of her life - one of those two things still scared her. 

"Did you know that?" She said with a more sly look, "I suspect the fears of young men are quite different..."

 

TAG: @Sharpie

Edited July 5, 2021 by Sara

[Sharpie]

"I did not know that," Aulus admitted. "I think young men are more scared of failing in the public sphere, or being killed in battle - no, no, young men are all absolutely invulnerable, we must not forget that. I think a public humiliation of some sort is the most terrifying thing for a young man." His own first venture into the Senate, surrounded by his father's friends and peers, was one of the most terrifying things Aulus could recall. Even his first battle hadn't been so terrifying, mainly because it wasn't at all clear what, exactly, was going on, and all he'd had to do was follow orders and remember his training.

Being expected to have his own opinions and to defend them was far more daunting, at least when he'd been young.

"It does not compare at all, does it," he commented, giving into the temptation of having his wife's feet in his lap to give them a rub. "I understand that in Sparta a few centuries ago, a woman who died in childbirth was given the same hero's funeral as a soldier killed in battle. Perhaps we should adopt the same custom?"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She smiled to herself as he spoke. How different life was between girls and boys, men and women of their society. Briefly yanked from her reverie by his touch on her feet - the sensation of which made her squirm slightly - she settled down with a shake of her head. 

"It does not compare, no." There was no malice in her voice, and she kept her tone even. "Men do not have to enter public life, even the sons of patricians." Plenty chose not to rise through the ranks or take on public office. Of course they didn't - there were only so many legions and so many openings for tribunes and aediles and quaestors, after all. "Us women...well, we have no such choices when it comes to marriage and children." Unless one was wealthy and could procure silphium - as Horatia did - for the latter, and had her paterfamilias wrapped around her finger for the former. 

Smiling sadly she shook her head, "I don't think there's enough firewood in Rome for all the pyres needed for the women who die in childbirth my love." She raised a hand to stroke the side of his face softly. He would never understand, but at least he was open to listening. She suspected a great many men would merely dismiss such conversation topics as the woes of women, not to be troubled with. "We're so fortunate to have our two, aren't we?" 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"We are very fortunate - they are a credit to their mother," Aulus said. He had wondered, sometimes, why there had never been a third child, Horatia had certainly not had trouble conceiving in their first years of marriage. To give birth to three children, of either sex, meant a woman was liberated from her father entirely under the Lex Augustae, with a social standing to equal that of the Vestal Virgins.

Horatia had never really shown that sort of ambition, though, which Aulus could understand - even without being party to women's things, he knew that pregnancy and birth were dangerous, and he had enough of his own ambition to satisfy the both of them.

"Have you never wished for a third child, even so?" he asked. "All other things aside, I mean. Hypothetically."

 

@Sara