Return to Me - By Morgan O'Neill Page 0,9
a busy center of commerce where someone was bound to recognize Magnus. “We can’t. It’s too dangerous for you.”
He reined in his horse and looked at her, his expression grave. “Perhaps, but I fear the risk must be taken. We’ve lost nearly a week in coming here, coming the wrong direction. We must pray Victoria will guide our path.”
Gigi gazed at him a moment, then took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, Portus it is,” she said in English.
“Okay,” he replied.
They rode out of the hills, toward Portus.
• • •
Pushing themselves and their horses hard, Gigi and Magnus spent only one night on the road to Portus. They skirted the walls of Rome, catching glimpses of familiar sites. They kept their heads down and their cloaks close about them. After nightfall, they slept in a rough taberna, hopefully well away from anyone who might recognize Magnus.
The morning greeted them bright and crisply clear, a gentle breeze ruffling their hair. As the sun rose, it got warm, and Gigi rolled up her cloak and tied it behind her. Magnus kept his on, preferring to reveal his legatus uniform only when they got to the docks of Portus.
They rode along the Via Portuense. The city’s outlying area looked like any industrial zone, with low, uninteresting warehouses and a multitude of smithy shops, pottery and glass factories, and granaries surrounded by shacks. The Via led them to Portus’s great wall. Gigi noticed places in the wall where the stonework looked different, lighter in color, and obviously newer. It had been four years since King Alaric and his Visigoths had sacked Rome, and she’d heard Portus had also been badly damaged by unruly bands under the command of Sergeric, who at the time was one of Alaric’s captains.
The statue of a woman with what appeared to be a tower on her head loomed above the main gate. “Who is the goddess, and what in the world is that thing on her head?” Gigi asked as they passed beneath.
“That is not a goddess, but merely imagery depicting the city of Portus,” Magnus explained. “The tower is the lighthouse of Claudius, which we will be seeing when we get to the harbor.”
Beyond the gate, the city bustled with all manner of commerce. There were food stalls lining the road, wagonloads of amphorae of every shape, wooden crates, and hundreds of people. They hollered at each other, haggled with merchants, ate, and gossiped. When Gigi and Magnus came to a roadblock caused by a cart with a broken wheel, she realized rush-hour headaches were nothing modern.
“We are nearly at the docks, Gigi. Stay very close,” Magnus advised.
As they circumvented the wrecked cart, a chilly breeze blew by, and Gigi could smell the sea. Breathing deeply, she guessed the wind was strong enough to raise a few white caps out in open water — a good sign. The sun warmed her upturned face. It was a beautiful day for a sail.
In moments, the embracing arms of Portus’s vast, inner harbor opened before them. The lighthouse of Claudius rose in the distance, while to Gigi’s immediate right a tall column loomed, topped with a statue of the goddess Victoria, who kept watch over sea and shore.
Magnus gazed up at the statue for a long moment. Dismounting, he threw off his travel cloak and went down on one knee in tribute. He kissed the image of Victoria on his garnet ring, remounted, and grinned at Gigi. “It is good to be home, my sweet.”
She smiled and nodded, then noticed how many people were eyeing Magnus. As they moved their horses forward, the crowd parted and several bowed. She heard someone say, “Make way for the legatus!”
Nervous, she relaxed her grip on her reins, but didn’t see anyone they knew, or even a hint of recognition toward her husband. Nevertheless, she fervently hoped no one here remembered Quintus Pontius Flavus Magnus, former legatus and senator of Rome.
Before them, ships bobbed at mooring blocks, but to Gigi’s modern eye they all looked leaky and unstable, obviously not a fiberglass hull in sight. Unbidden memories filled her mind, images of the sea disaster at Messina, where so many ships had been lost and dozens of Visigoths had drowned. She worried over the possibility of surviving a storm aboard a similar wooden vessel.
Uneasy, she glanced again at the blue sky, then pushed aside her pessimistic thoughts and followed Magnus to a nearby dock. He soon found someone in charge, who pointed toward another dock