Delivery for... a friend?

[Sara]

Ovinia Camilla

Did she prefer the familiar? Perhaps for most of her life she had. She enjoyed her wealth and her friends who all had similar interests, she liked understanding what she was expected to do with her life and the roles she was expected to play; pious, chaste daughter, newlywed, mother, matriarch...it all seemed so...neat when she was younger. Now thought it felt so...unfulfilling, or most of it did at least. But they were the cards she had been dealt and short of absconding to Egypt with her lover in tow, there was no escaping it. She sipped her wine and tried to push the thoughts away. 

"I can't say I'm hugely educated on the Empire, reading isn't my passion," She smiled to herself, "But I do wonder what their lives are like. I've only met Britons who are slaves, and they never speak of their homeland." She frowned, as if annoyed by that fact and completely oblivious to the fact that the reason they didn't speak of it was because men like her and Teutus' father forbade them too. "But I do have a bodyguard who's from there." She chuckled, "Tattoos all up his face," She wrinkled her nose, "Shock of blonde hair. Quite savage looking, but apparently that's in fashion, I hear Claudia Caesaris has a female Briton as her bodyguard." Her lips twitched, "But if anybody asks you Teutus, I set the fashion." 

 

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[Sharpie]

Teutus Quinctilius Varus

 

"But of course you set the fashions, Ovinia Camilla," Teutus said, affecting a look of surprise that anyone would suggest his elegant hostess would not be the one setting the fashion in Rome. "I daresay they're all extremely grateful to find themselves somewhere warm for once - maybe the blue isn't paint but the effects of the cold?"

It wasn't; he'd seen Britons in Rome, in the slave markets and the streets, and was well aware that the blue was inked-in patterns. He agreed fully with Ovinia's opinion that it was completely savage looking - but if the wild cold North was in fashion, who was Teutus to complain about that, when he was considering looking to buy and sell wares from there?

"I doubt the Princess' female bodyguard is tattooed, as yours is," he added with a slight shrug. "You're from Hispania originally, and your bodyguard is from Britannia. Is there anywhere in the Empire you would like to visit, given the chance?"

 

@Sara

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sharpie

[Sara]

Ovinia Camilla

"Well of course I do, have you seen me?" She said with a wide grin as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, in response to his jest about setting fashions. In truth, she knew women looked up to her, girls as well. The benefits of having good looking parents, money and successful lineages on both sides of her family. Ultimately, of course, it would matter for nought if she ended up just another bored, depressed matron. But she tried very hard  not to think of that and instead sipped her wine. 

"My mothers family are from Hispania, distantly," She corrected with a 'tsk' noise and an amused glint in her eyes. It explained her colouring, if nothing else. "And...I don't know." She sighed with a shake of her head as she tucked her legs up under herself. "I used to want a husband in the legions so I could travel the Empire, see all the sites..." She mused, dangerously close to being honest, "Although now I'm homesick at the mere thought...I...suppose I'd like to see Hispania though. Maybe Gaul...to see if all the stories are true. And you?" 

 

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[Sharpie]

Teutus Quinctilius Varus

 

"Your mother - yes, you did say it was your mother who was Hispanian," Teutus answered, with a nod and an apologetic look. "Did she like your gift - I hope you don't mind indulging my professional curiosity. " He didn't think any woman would have disliked receiving something made of the fine soft merino wool, but who knew - and if Ovinia's mother had liked it, that would bring more custom from this household and others within its influence.

He could hope, anyway.

He found himself tracing circles on the cushion under his arm and looked back up. "I would be lying if I said I had never had the wish to see more of the world - truth be told, there was a time I was considering taking a ship and going to Hispania to settle, but that was before my business here was established. And and travel I undertake now would be more for professional reasons than simply the personal urge to see more of the empire."

 

@Sara

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sharpie

[Sara]

Ovinia Camilla

Ovinia was grateful for the diversion in conversation; "She did, she loved it." She said with a private, soft smile. Her mother's health was currently poor. It was a cyclical disease, whatever the physicians had decided it was, and currently she was in almost daily pain. It was painful to see, to be there at her side and know she could do nothing beyond give her the useless tinctures that the medicus supplied. The medicus that cost a pretty penny but produced no real results. The thought occurred to her as Teutus continued to speak and she tilted her head to the side; "Do you have any connection to healers? In other provinces? I've heard of the Eastern medicine being better than ours...or different. Do you...stock any of their wares?" It was probably not the sorts of good he moved, but it never hurt to ask.

Tucking her glossy dark hair behind her ear, her fingers dropped to her lunula and she smiled softly. "Ah to be a man, to have the freedom to do so if you wanted..." Careful, Ovinia, a voice called in her head and she cleared her throat. "Do you think you would have been happy? Starting again from scratch?"

 

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[Sharpie]

Teutus Quinctilius Varus

"Eastern medicine? I don't, but I can make enquiries," he said. It was not the sort of thing he generally traded in, but it couldn't hurt to enquire and see - and if there was a market for that kind of thing, he would like to get in on it, and undercut those who would no doubt be involved in price gouging the desperate.

She was sweet, and an innocent if she thought Teutus had the freedom to do exactly as he pleased. He did to some degree, and was aware of it, but if he had gone to Hispania, or anywhere else, it would probably have been against his father's will. Not that the question had ever really been raised for him to know that, but he knew Tertius well enough to know that his living in an insula on the lower slopes of the same hill of Rome as his father's domus was probably the extent of the distance Tertius would permit him to move away. Tertius hadn't even been happy about his moving that far, truth be told.

"Maybe I have some freedom, I'm not sure it would have extended to my moving to a whole different province of the Empire," he said lightly. He was grateful, in a way, that he had not married Ovinia - she was too good to have been dragged into the twisted tangle of Teutus' family relationships. "Perhaps it's a good thing I never made the move."

Even if it did mean he was still under his father's thumb more than he cared to admit.

"I suppose you'd like to marry someone who will take you to some of these interesting places, then?" he added, swirling the ruby wine a little in his cup before taking another mouthful of it.

 

@Sara

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sharpie

[Sara]

Ovinia Camilla

 

Ovinia inclined her head and smiled softly. "Thank you. I would be grateful and..." She flicked those dark, depthless eyes up to the atrium, "I would of course appreciate your discretion. I would not wish the medicus we have in our employ to be...offended." Nor would her father likely approve. He was a traditionalist in all senses and Eastern medicine had been mooted and dismissed before but...if it helped her mother, then she would risk his ire. She never would have even thought to before but now...life, recently, had shown her a new perspective. 

Her lips twitched though as she listened and then answered his question; "It is not my choice." But she added with a sigh, "I...don't think so. There are things I think I can accomplish in the city now." She glanced out at the gardens, her face a little wistful, "I can help people here...my husband with a political career, the people of the city..." the latter certainly hadn't been a consideration of hers before last year but now..."Maybe when I'm older, I'd like to travel but...for now...I'm content where I am." And then she flicked her eyes back to Teutus, "But you didn't answer my question...I didn't ask if it was possible for you to start over...I asked if you would have been happy, had you had the opportunity?" 

 

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[Sharpie]

Teutus Quinctilius Varus

"Would I be happy...?" Teutus echoed, thoughtfully. Happiness was not something he'd really thought about much; his life was far too complicated, really, for 'happiness' to mean much.

"I don't know," he confessed. He had found his mother and was making his own way - yes, he'd used his father's money to start with, but he had gone beyond those funds by now. "Maybe not - but life would be different. It's like trying to compare wool and wax. Both very useful but in very different ways and one can't possibly substitute for the other. My life here... Rome is familiar to me, and it's where my family is. Such as my family is, of course. But Hispania would be... different. Adventure." He laughed, briefly. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for adventure, to tell the truth, although I'm not sure I'm exactly unadventurous." He shrugged. "I'm a contradiction above all, Ovinia Camilla. I think I'm happy enough here, really, despite everything I've said earlier!"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Ovinia Camilla

Ovinia listened. She had enough years of sitting through dinners and courting events to learn the art of patience, but for now it wasn't a mask - she was genuinely interested. "I understand." She chuckled and shook her head. "I don't think I'm cut out for adventure either." She let out a soft sigh and tucked her legs up under herself. 

"We were not born and raised for adventure though." She countered, watching him intently. "You were a slave," She wasn't embarrassed about saying it plainly - although she briefly considered whether he would be embarrassed about her saying such a thing. "Adventure was the very last thing you were supposed to be doing or thinking of. And I was born a woman." She chuckled, "My job and my life is my home. Adventure is not for us...has never been for us, it is for the men - plebeian, patrician, equite, it doesn't matter...but it's for them." she shrugged, "I've often wondered about what would my life have looked like if I had been a son not a daughter..." She mused, "The fourth son. No responsibilities, no requirements. I suspect I would have hated it." She chuckled. Ovinia liked...order. Rules. Even if recently she'd been testing them. 

 

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[Sharpie]

Teutus Quinctilius Varus

"No," he said, as she commented that neither of them had been born for adventure. "And yes," he added, as she continued that he had been a slave. So he had, but he was a slave no longer, although he didn't always feel particularly free, either.

"I think also that one can find adventure if circumstances change - although considering that sort of change tends to be in a time of war, perhaps it's better not to think about it." He studied her, head slightly on one side (a mannerism exactly like his father's, although he was unaware of it). "The fourth son... perhaps you would have joined the legions. Probably you would take your seat in the Senate - the political and military are very much intertwined, after all."

It was very much a career path he knew his father had hoped he might take, one day, until reality had borne in upon him and he had grown resigned to the fact that Teutus was limited by his status as a freedman. Maybe Tertius might live long enough to see Teutus' son begin such a career path?

Probably he wouldn't care by then - but maybe he would. He'd have his other, legitimate, son's career to think about before then.

"You want a life of responsibility and duty, then?" he asked. Which meant that she would be looking to marry - as the first part of this whole conversation had insinuated - and run her home, raise her children... "Is that something that will make you happy?"

 

@Sara