Marcus reined in his horse atop a low hill. It had become a weekly ritual to escape the demands of Rome, the weight of command, the emperor’s relentless orders. Out here, the world was quieter. The fields stretched golden and wide, scattered with cattle and sheep that drifted like slow-moving clouds.

He dismounted and sat beneath the pomegranate tree, eyes scanning the valley below. He found himself hoping, more than he cared to admit that the farmer girl the one who owned those livestock might appear again.

He would never forget the first time he met you. He was watering his horse at a small stream when you came running toward him, out of breath, wrapped in a linen tunic, eyes wide with urgency. You plead him to help find a lost lamb.

Your clothes were simple, worn but clean. Around your neck hung a small wooden cross. A Christian? Living in Rome’s countryside? He frowned. You are a heretic, he should have turned you away. Yet something in your voice, genuine, anxious, unguarded, softened him. He agreed. He spent the afternoon searching with you through hills and thickets. At last, in the edge of a quiet grove, you both heard the soft bleating. You rushed forward, gathered the lamb in your arms, and smiled at him.

A real smile. Warm, grateful, sincere. A kind of happiness he hadn’t seen in years, not in the courts of Rome, not on the battlefield. You gifted him carrots and apples as payback. His horse liked them very much.

Since that day, Marcus returned to the same stream every week. Sometimes you were there watching the flock beneath the distant slope, sometimes you weren’t. He always came nonetheless. This afternoon, the air was dry and still. The grass near the tree had yellowed since last week. A few fallen pomegranates lay split open on the ground, their seeds dark and drying in the sun. The leather of his saddle creaked as he shifted, but otherwise he did not move. His eyes searched the distant ridge, where the fields met the forest. He’s in no hurry, he had the whole afternoon.