•••
Years ago, letters from Rome described the political ascendancy of Gaius Julius Caesar. I still have them. At the time, I told myself an ailing empire had finally fitted to its neck a cunning, ruthless head to match its foul and corrupt body. I cannot deny that my gratification was palpable when word reached us here on our tiny island refuge, almost a decade after Crassus had sailed from Brundisium to meet his own fate, that with a frenzy of daggers, the gods had granted Caesar's wish for an “unexpected death. ”
Calmly, Alexandros, calmly; you are too brittle to allow yourself to be cracked by immoderate indignation. At whom would you direct it, and to what effect? You must husband your strength if you are to have any hope of achieving your own modest purpose. Righteous choler is such a taxing emotion. Indeed, at my age, it takes some bit of wind to rise or sit, hence I am resolved to stay where I am put. No, hatred is a coin best spent by vigorous, ambitious youth.
Harken to me now; I am composed.
PART I – Home
Chapter I
56 BCE Summer, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus
It was a bad day for Livia’s homecoming. We had just returned to Rome from Luca; nerves were frayed and twisted like an unkempt braid. Though Crassus had been assured of a five-year term as governor of Syria, he was sullen and the mood of the familia was more funereal than festive. Normally, I would have helped him through his discontent with dialogue and philosophical diversions, but not today. I occupied myself instead by making a distracted attempt to teach my new assistant to balance the monthly grain accounts; my distraction was total—I was as breathless and as jumpy as a fish in a net. That evening I discovered the man had done a superlative job without any help from me. I was soon to learn why Crassus had foisted this freedman upon me. There were two reasons, one more disturbing than the next. But we shall come to that.
Pacing back and forth through the atrium, then out past the guards to scour the street for any sign of her, I thought about one of the last times Livia and I had been together, almost six years earlier. Another unhappy day.
•••
The true and lasting punishment from being whipped comes not with the stinging agony of your flesh being stripped from your back. Though you think it never will, that pain fades. Not so the humiliation you are meant to carry with you ever after. These Romans have had centuries to refine the art of encouraging submission. The true penance of a good scourging is writ with a dye more indelible than the knots of twisted rope that crawl beneath your tunic. Those scars that tug and itch with every bend or stretch are proof that you have been separated forever and always to live amongst that class of creature which welcomes those rebellious individuals of their breeds – horses, oxen, dogs and other unmanageable examples that are not fully domesticated. In my case, I was moronically proud to claim that I was not a very good example of Roman subjugation, for both Crassus and I knew, even as he cracked the lorum into my flesh, that faced with the same circumstance, I would repeat the “offense.” Did this make me a bad slave? Or Crassus a lenient owner? Neither one of us paid heed to the strict rules of Roman society—as a slave, I should never have laid hands on Julius Caesar, praetor and pontifex maximus, and because I did, Crassus should have had me crucified, and yet he spared me.
But you see, this whipping had very little to do with punishment, and almost everything to do with love. No, I have not lost what little remains of my senses. When Caesar assaulted Livia, meaning to defile her, it was either love or madness that spurred me to break his hold, punch him in the face and knock him to the ground. (Truthfully, he fell back onto a couch, but the affront was the same; I might as well have thrust a knife into him.) In the crystal sanity of that moment I was certain beyond any doubt that my love for Livia was genuine and pure. How? Because I knew the next day I would be dead. I was surprised and proud, with only a smidgeon of regret to discover I could count myself among the very few who could say they were willing to die for love. And prove it. At least my 8,791 days as a slave would finally come to an end.
Crassus had no choice but to set an example. A slave assaulting a noble must be dealt with swiftly and brutally. The consequences must be a merciless warning to others, severe and shocking, so that news of the horror of it travels far and wide. Even more so in our case, since we were summering at Baiae, over 100 miles from Rome. That is how I am certain that Marcus Licinius Crassus, the same general Crassus who revived the dormant, lethal discipline of decimation and subjected an entire cohort to it for fleeing the field of battle in the war against Spartacus, the heart of that same hard man bore some kind of love for me. Here is how he demonstrated it: he threw Caesar from his home and chose the whip for me rather than the cross. Granted, it was a peculiar display of affection, but affection nonetheless. Did I love him for it in return? No, but Pan’s hoof, he knew me too well. In truth, I did not want to die, and I had no choice but to be grateful to my master that the kiss of the lorum was all that I suffered. That tickled him, no doubt. I took solace in the knowledge that though he would never treat me as an equal, he often treated me as a man. For a Roman slave, that was something.
By the way, if your predilection for lurid details has not been satisfied by this abbreviated version of these gruesome goings on, and you slaver for the original and more explicit accounting, the Serapeum will have copies of the first set of scrolls of this sad chronicle. Providing that ancient temple and repository of knowledge still stands.
Just before my sentence was carried out, Livia ran up to me and kissed me briefly on the mouth, her eyes shimmering. She also called me stupid, which stirred as much hope in my breast as her caress. Unfortunately, there shortly came proof that doused that anemic, yet emboldened flame: before I had risen from my sick bed after my ordeal, I discovered she was gone, and without a word of parting! Dominus had allowed her, at the last moment, to accompany Baltus, the pompous but competent medicus who had treated my wounds, along with a dozen men and several women from our own fledgling clinic and medical school to travel to the House of Life in Memphis to learn all they could of that ancient civilization’s healing art. Livia, it seemed, had been granted permission to set aside her duties as seamstress to follow in the footsteps of her disgraced mother. She intended to become a healer. The excruciating irony of this tale is that with Crassus’ blessing and funding, it was I who had established our school of medicine, of which there were almost none in plague-ridden Rome, ravaged as it was by the rose-spotted fever and again every summer by the rage of the Dog Star. (Editor’s note: typhoid fever and malaria.)
I learned of her departure three days into my recuperation. They had kept me drugged with opium-laced wine to keep me still and on my stomach. When I came to my senses, I found lady Tertulla by my side with Baltus’ replacement standing close by, a florid and overheated physician who annoyed me by rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, keeping his less than immaculate fingers interlaced over his belly.
“Domina,” I croaked. Crassus’ wife, then thirty-eight, was almost as lovely a first vision upon waking as Livia would have been. Her dark curls were laced with periwinkles, the same color as her peplos, which was o’er-draped by a white palla of such fine material it appeared as if she sat in a cloud. She smelled of verbena.
Tertulla took my hand and said, “My fine, brave fool. Is there much pain?”
“Where is Livia, domina?
“I am so sorry this happened.” Romans tend to crush conversation with the wide wheels of their own thoughts. “You know my husband had no choice in this matter?”
“I am thankful for his lenience.”
“You acted exactly as I would have done, Alexander, and more bravely, too. Would that I had been there in your stead.” She laid a gentle hand on my blanketed shoulder. “The repercussions,” she said, glancing down the length of my back, “would have been contained. Caesar is a disgrace. Politics makes his pr
esence necessary, but I will do all I can to keep him from our home in the future. Of course we can never admit it publicly, but dominus and I will always be in your debt for protecting one of our familia.”
“It was very good of you to be here upon my waking, my lady, but I should very much like to speak with Livia.”
“She sat by you, in this very chair, day and night.”
“Might you summon her, my lady?”
“She’s gone,” the fat doctor interrupted.
“Gaius Flavius!” Tertulla snapped.
“Gone? What do you mean, gone? Gone where?”
“You need to rest,” they both said at the same time. Flavius wiped his brow with a hairless forearm.
I forced myself to a sitting position, buds of perspiration blooming almost as rapidly upon me as they grew upon the good doctor. Tertulla said, “Dominus asked to see you when you were well, but don’t tax yourself now. He will explain everything to you.”
I asked forgiveness from my lady as I stood, sat down, then stood again, wincing as my wounds complained from far too many places. I steadied myself against the scrollwork of the couch’s arm, breathing through my nose, lips pursed, refusing to take my eyes off domina. At last she relented and told me he was in the tablinum, nodding for Flavius to assist me. I shuffled through the house and as Tertulla had promised, found Marcus Licinius Crassus in his study. “You let her go!” I cried. “To Memphis!”
My owner looked up from his work.
“In Egypt!” I said.
Dominus asked Gaius Flavius in a voice which incontestable power had made soothing, almost seductive whenever he addressed those over whom that dominance was wielded, “Should he be up?” The doctor, standing nervously at my side, supporting me gingerly, glanced at the dressings on my back and shrugged, a gesture which would have him seeking new employment as soon as I was well enough to tend to the matter. I gripped the back of a chair for support and told Gaius Flavius to see to his other patients.
“You sent her to Egypt,” I repeated when the healer had retreated to wherever it was he went to practice being inconspicuous.
“Calm yourself, Alexander. In fact, it was Livia who begged me to let her go.”
“And you agreed to this?”
Crassus rose from behind his worktable and bade me walk with him in the peristyle. “Do you remember that first day when you were brought before general Sulla as a gift for me? It must be 25 years or more. You burned as hot as the eternal flame in the Temple of Delphic Apollo.”
“Yes. As I recall, Sulla extinguished that flame and sacked the temple about the same time his soldiers seized me in Athens.”
“He may have done, but that is irrelevant to my point, which is that you were in a frenzied state that only an arrow could subdue.”
“Lucky for us someone had one handy. Can you stop her? I am begging you to bring her back.”
“Hush. Look at you now. Time has softened your resolve to murder every Roman citizen in his bed. One might even say that after all this time, you are content.”
“I live only to serve.”
“If only that were true.” Crassus sighed. “But then, a gladius would be worthless with a dull and blunted edge.”
“It may not be too late, dominus.”
“You are the penultimate proof, my old friend.” My look was blank, peppered by twitches of frustration. “To test my intellect,” he explained, “I understand that those who surround me must also test my patience. But once again you have steered me from my intended harbor.”
“Your point is clear, dominus. Give her time, give her time. I have given her twenty years! We fell in love, barely more than children, but then her mother murdered Tessa. When I proved it so, the light in Livia’s eyes turned to ash. For years, we toiled beneath your roof as strangers; I kept my distance, but my heart, once given, could not find its way home. I followed your advice. I waited. Waited, while she formed a contubernium with that sculptor; waited as she buried him a year later. She was twenty-five. Afterwards, the years were kind to me; Livia did as you predicted, her regard softened and we became friends once more. But it was not until now that I dared hope she felt something more. And she is gone.” I sagged, unable to bear the weight of Roman will that pressed in upon me.
Crassus held my shoulders as gently as he could. “She will return, my friend. I promised her that if she studied hard and proved herself able, she could assume her mother’s duties in the clinic.”
“Why did she go?” I whispered. “Why now?”
“Perhaps the answer lies in here, my lovesick atriensis. Go, read it in private, then return to me before the fourth hour. The senate is still spluttering about Catiline’s surviving supporters, and I promised the conscript fathers I would appear by lunchtime to hear more of Cicero’s pathetic attempt to ingratiate himself with the senate after his exile. I’d sooner bite the head off an uncooked mouse, but there it is.”
Crassus handed me the letter; I tripped three times in my gangly haste to find the privacy of my rooms.
•••
To Alexander, House of M. Licinius Crassus
Rome, Quintilis
I have much to say to you and hardly know where to begin. First and above all others: do not expect my gratitude for your foolhardiness. Why would you risk everything for me? Someone with the right to stop Caesar probably would have come along, and if not, who are we to resist? What if he had asked dominus for permission and it had been granted? Would you have tried to save me then? Whether he raped me or let me go—these things are both of a kind, the same side of the same coin. We are nothing. You less than I, had your intervention gotten you killed. I do not want you to be my hero.
It is late and I am tired. I would feed what I have written to the brazier and start again had I more time and parchment. You are brave and kind, Alexandros. You are also a fool, but maybe I have been one as well. I know you expect no words of gratitude, but you shall have them anyway. I could not bring myself to wake you, and they will not hold the ship. I must leave for Ostia before dawn. Thank you for rescuing me.
I think that maybe I can say what I am about to say, even after all this time, because I am leaving and must write my feelings down rather than speak them to your face. You see, I am a coward as well as a fool, and will not risk the lash of your remonstrations. After Sabina was sent away I could not approach you, first from anger, then from sorrow, and finally from shame. The more time that passed, the easier it was to let it go. To let us go.
I ask your forgiveness. I was so young when we fell in love—barely seventeen, and then came the awful business with my mother. I despised and blamed you when dominus sent her to the mines for killing poor Tessa. I hated you for proving her guilt. But here is the truth I have never spoken till now: Sabina was a murderer. Not you. You did what you always do: you chose the right over the good. She did an awful thing, a crime to be punished and reviled. But I could not bring myself to lay those loathsome feelings upon my own mother. So I draped them over you, and poisoned everything that was ever good between us.
I must speak to you of Lykos. Sabina was gone, I had turned my heart against you, and I had no one. I was miserable, and Lykos was kind. It is unbearably sad that he came to such a terrible end, but the truth is, I hated myself for never being able to fully return the feelings he had for me. I could love no one in those days. It is a terrible thing to say, but when he died, part of me was relieved. And something else. It was my time with Lykos that showed me that my love for you was real. And that I care for you still.
I need to get away from here, from this house, from the memories and the pain. Bless domina and dominus for allowing me to make this choice. I need to find myself again. Sitting by you while you slept reminded me of the first time I saw you—shot by one of Sulla’s archers all those years ago. If you would only learn to keep your mouth shut your health would drastically improve! See—I am learning to smile again. When I return, I hope to be a new person, with new purpose and new hop
e.
It is almost dawn, and I have yet to pack. Wish me well. Write. I promise to reply with speed. Livia
•••
I read the letter over and over again, sitting on the edge of my lectus. When I finally dropped the scroll to the floor, I had practically committed it to memory. I thought about the years she would be away. Then, for the longest while, I sat very still, my head in my hands, and tried with a shaking will to think of absolutely nothing at all.
•••
That was six years ago. And now the carriages which carried her and the others were pulling up to the gates. Domina had allowed a small crowd to assemble in welcome. I stood on the curb, but as the familia pressed forward around me, suddenly I turned and pushed my way through the throng, walking briskly back into the house. In my tablinum, I could hear the sounds of welcome and celebration coming from the atrium. I stayed where I was.
An hour later she found me, announcing her arrival with the cheerful, maddening whistle that had been her habit ever since she was a child. The tune has always been unrecognizable, but hearing it once again for the first time in such a long time made my back ache and my stomach tighten. The song stopped as she entered my office. She pulled a chair up to the opposite side of my table and lowered herself into it without every taking her eyes off mine. She was dressed as I remembered her, except the belt cinching her plain linen tunic was made of a double strand of green malachite beads. Her dark red hair was cut in the Egyptian style—draped in front down either side of her neck to cover her breasts, short bangs hiding half her forehead.
A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven Page 2