Sub Rosa

Chapter 2b: Liviu and Lucian Pt. 1

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"What do you think will happen?" Lucian asked.

"What do you mean?" Liviu asked.

By now they were on their way to Jerusalem, to meet with the prince. They had stopped at some Samaritan town not too long ago for food and water for them and their horses. In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea to travel with them in this desert land.

"Well, I'm just saying. When we get there, is he going to? I don't know, be lenient?"

"You mean since we don't have the girl?" Liviu asked.

Lucian nodded, "I'm just saying. He put up with her all these years…" he paused, Liviu looked at him. "I just realize something."

"What?"

"What is he going to do with slave money, when we go back to Rome?" Lucian asked in an almost dimwitted tone.

Liviu stopped his horse, and then placed his hand in his dirty rough brown hair. "Are you kidding me!" He groaned. "He'll kill us! What the hell is he going to with slave money in Rome?"

Lucian scrunched his blonde eyebrows. "Didn't I just say that?" He had stopped a few inches ahead of Liviu. "Oh! Maybe he can…." He shut his mouth when Liviu gave him a look filled with hate and annoyance. "…never mind." He lowered his brown eyes to the dirt.

"Now, we have to go back and get her. Argh! I don't see why he wants her?" He yelled, turning the horse back around towards Cana.

Lucian commanded his horse to move, catching up to Liviu he said. "Wasn't it because she could be—"

"Hush! You never know whose listening." Liviu warned him. They went quiet for a few minutes. Before Liviu spoke, "you know, I always wondered why we are here."

"To get the girl... like some plot from a bad children's story." Lucian said mumbling. Then he thought for a moment, "Maybe there is some kind of divine power out there. Like maybe, this god these people worship, maybe he's better than ours. Like, I've always wondered when I die. What being is going to meet me? And explain to me what my true purpose was all along. Or maybe," When Lucian stopped looking at the blue sky, he gazed over at Liviu whose face a held disturb and odd look.

"I meant why we are here, in Israel! Why do we always come here, it never changes." Liviu shook his head, "geez, I ask a simple question and you go all off into some obscene daydream." After he finished berating Lucian, again both Roman men were quiet.

"What do you think is out there, in the rest of the world?" Lucian asked, after moments of silence.

Liviu grinded his teeth against each other. "This is going to be a long trip."