A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven

by Levkoff, Andrew

  We gave Felix all the love we could for as long as we could. Then we handed him to lady Tertulla and followed our master to war. The separation from Hanno was unspeakable. He had to be physically restrained and no amount of affection or reassurance would stop the flow of his tears.

  Those partings chipped another piece from the foundation of what I had convinced myself to think of as my friendship with Marcus Crassus. It fell to the ground, and though it might be repaired with care and time, I would not, could not ever be the one to bend my scarred back to pick it up.

  •••

  Dominus was not totally heartless; in fact he was generous beyond measure, though his kindheartedness bore the cruelest of ironies. Not only had lady Tertulla promised to personally see to the care of little Felix, our lord made this pledge: if the fates were merciless and neither Livia nor I returned to claim our son within three years, Crassus, or Tertulla in his absence, would go before a magistrate with dominus’ written instructions to perform the ceremony of manumission. He showed us the scroll—a guarantee of our boy’s freedom, including a stipend of 5,000 sesterces a year, until his 25th birthday, at which time a place would be found for him to continue working on the estate as a freedman, if he so chose. All that was required to satisfy this generous arrangement was that both his parents be casualties of Crassus' war.

  But what if we lived? What if dominus was right and the Parthians were easily overcome? To survive would condemn the child to a life of servitude. Coming home would be tantamount to making our own son a slave. The obvious and literal escape clause was easily blocked: should either of us run away or attempt to flee, the offer would be rescinded. The only way to free Felix was to die.

  To understand how Crassus could imagine that we would be comforted by such an offer, you must see it from his point of view. To him, choosing freedom, a life outside the aegis of his beneficence, was a poor decision indeed. The security, housing, sustenance, sense of familia—the life he gave his slaves was better by far than anything that could be imagined beyond his influence. He was undoubtedly right; Crassus was an exception to the Roman norm. But he also understood, because I had explained it to him on numerous occasions, that servitude to an enlightened master was a viper with seductive and unshakeable fangs: the more a slave was injected with the venom of comfort and security, the more numb he became to his own condition.

  So Crassus, knowing what it would mean to Livia and me, would give our son the choice, should we not return, of making his own way in the world. Felix Alexandros would be able to choose his own destiny. From that moment on, there was not a day that passed without the contemplation of our cruel dilemma. We were determined to give our newborn son the chance to become a free man.

  •••

  The day before Crassus was to hear the decision from the senate regarding his invasion plans, I made yet another attempt to dissuade my master from his costly revenge. We sat together in his office.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” he had said. “I believe my wife was raped. I am going to war because I believe her.”

  “She would never betray you,” I said quietly.

  “Let me tell you a story,” Crassus said. “I named Publius after my brother. Before he was murdered, one time when we were children, I came upon him playing with a toy catapult that belonged to me. Publius had broken one of the strings that secured the basket and was trying to repair it. I pushed him aside, looked at the damage and saw how easy it would be to fix. I left it in the dirt, and never played with it again.”

  I did not know what to say. “You need time.”

  “I do not think I am not alone in my misgivings about that night,” Crassus said, “Your lady is finding it more and more difficult to accept what happened that night in Luca. True, it was she who had warned me away with her eyes. But it was I who froze, as hard and as unmoving as quarry marble. And when at last my indecision thawed, what action did I take? I faded into the darkness. I cannot tell you with certainty whether it was her silent plea or cowardice that finally moved me.” He paused to rub brusquely at his eyes, as if by doing so, he could blind himself to that one memory. “We do not speak of it.”

  “With respect, dominus, could it be you, not domina, who is finding your…predicament more difficult to accept? My lady adores you. She wants things as they were. I can see it in her every movement, in the way she looks at you when she knows you cannot see. She wants to reach you, dominus, but grows afraid she no longer knows how.”

  “I would have been no match for him. I know that. But better to have died in that accursed room than live with what I have become. I am no coward, Alexander. I can not be a coward.”

  “You have both suffered; there are no cowards in this house.”

  “It does not matter,” he said, sounding beaten and exhausted. “The logic of it, the political expediency, the weighing of pros and cons—it is all beside the point. He was there, she succumbed, I did nothing. These facts are irrefutable. Though we love each other still, the wound is open and foul. I know of only one balm that will heal it.”

  “There is another, dominus.”

  “If the plant from which it grows lies not in Parthia, it is a false cure.”

  I took a breath. “Forgive domina. Forgive yourself. Forget Caesar.”

  He turned on me suddenly. “I told you once before not to speak of this again. You have no idea what you ask. Your words of comfort offer none. They are noises you make with the vain hope that I will find the sounds pleasing and logical. You know nothing of this!” I flinched, thinking he was going to strike me. “Sounds without meaning, Alexander. Your philosophy is useless here.” He walked behind his table and sat, resting his arms on the gilt lion paw armrests of his chair. His fingers caressed the grooves of each claw.

  He spoke again, his voice soft and terrifying. “You will never understand, Alexander. No. You can never know. But I can show you; there is a way. Do you wish to know? Do you want to feel it in your heart till it cracks from the knowing?” His words flowed black and thick, a spume noisome and vaporous. “Then do this,” he said. “Put Livia in that room. See Caesar’s hands on her breasts, Alexander. Hear the rustle of fabric as he pushes up her tunic and thrusts his cock up inside her.” Crassus exhaled with a sound like a bull before the priest’s blade falls. “Then, when you can see him grunting behind the only love you have ever known, when you have done that, then you put yourself in that doorway. And you stand there, and you watch. Watch and do nothing. Look at him. Look at the tears on her cheeks. Now, tell me again. Tell me to forget Caesar. Go ahead, Alexander. Tell me to forgive myself. Tell me. TELL ME!”

  I stood quite still, trying to shut out the image that once envisioned, would never depart. Crassus, now disgusted, waived his hand at me as if he were swatting a fly. “Get out. And if you ever ask that of me again, or attempt to move me from my course, I will have you flogged, or worse.”

  •••

  I waited for Crassus on the steps of the curia. Clouds with flat bottoms moved across the sky as if they glided on the surface of a calm sea. In my mind’s eye I saw the forum, the people, the entire city under water; the real world was up there, and we were the dark reflection beneath. Behind me, the double doors of the senate’s meeting house finally creaked open and a dozen blinking lictors stepped into the light. They formed a double line into the center of which my lord strode. Following close behind were his legates and senior officers, junior senators themselves. Crassus adjusted his toga with a yank and nodded for our company to proceed down the steps. He was not happy.

  “Bad news,” I said, elbowing my way without opposition into the channel of refuge made by his guards. “I see the others did not adjourn.”

  “I consign the others to Pluto’s ass,” Crassus said, holding out the scroll with his invasion proposal. I took it.

  “You expected this,” I said as we walked through the forum. People stopped to stare or wave. Many applauded as Marcus Licinius Crassus passed by. Our pace remained
steady. “Therefore you cannot be exceedingly disappointed.”

  “I am the dog who sits patiently by the dining couch night after night, swallowing his drool at the prospect of scraps that never come. Foolish dog. Octavius!” A man in his mid-thirties with short, unruly hair and flushed cheeks who still managed to look boyish rushed up, the hem of his toga bunched up in his hands so he wouldn’t trip while running. His was the first letter we had received asking for a commission.

  “General?” Octavius asked.

  “Where is Cassius?”

  “On the Campus Martius, taking inventory, laying in the last of our stores.”

  “Good. The senate, as you heard, has dismissed us.”

  “Why stay where we are not welcome?” the legate said. I liked his sense of humor. It had a certain ring to it.

  “Precisely. Alexander, you will leave for Brundisium the moment you are able to prepare for the army’s arrival and accommodation. We will follow in haste.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence. Crassus never rode to the forum; he always walked. Walking, he claimed, was the best exercise. If true, the months ahead would make many tens of thousands fit indeed. My disposition leaning naturally toward the morbid, I thought of those poor, fit souls who, when our labors were through, would never make the return trip, and prayed their number would be few.

  Crassus bid his lictors and lieutenants enter the domus with us, rather than make them wait in the street. After they greeted the lady of the house, to their delight and our surprise, her handmaidens ushered them into the great hall where domina had prepared a feast of rare foods and wines in honor of our imminent departure. We left them toasting each others’ success and returned to the first atrium, where I took up my primary post as a silent ghost. The room, lit by a mote-flecked bar of sunlight from the rectangular opening above the impluvium, was done in Carthaginian marble of the deepest reds and yellows. Quite rare, quite expensive. It was, however, purchased at a substantial discount—Crassus owned the quarry.

  Tertulla’s image was reflected in the atrium pool, hands demurely clasped and folded in front of her. She wore a plain, white peplos held by two gold brooches at the shoulders, and once again had abandoned her stola in favor of a second tunic. It was dark green, artfully hung off one shoulder before falling to her ankles. The matrons of society had clucked behind her back at her refusal to dress respectably, but she dressed only for dominus. One thing they could never reprove was her loveliness. A belt of golden threads cinched her waist and gave form to her figure. She wore her hair in the style Crassus favored most: black curls arranged to frame her pale forehead and cheeks. Longer wisps spiraled in front of her ears, which were adorned by the slender gold pendant earrings her husband had just given her for her forty-sixth birthday.

  “I’ve heard complaints,” Crassus said, taking her hands in his. She cocked her head, completely unalarmed. “Indeed. I have heard it whispered that your eyes are too blue, too large for such a perfect oval of a face.”

  “I’m ashamed to admit it is true.” She scrunched up her expression and squinted. “There, is that better?”

  “Don’t bother, it only helps a little. There is more: your grooming is too carefree, your hairstyle disheveled. But to me,” he said, “everything about you is as perfect as Plato’s forms.”

  They stepped into each other’s arms, gripped by an awkward hesitation before their lips met in an unsure kiss. I had never seen them so tentative before. Thankfully, their embrace was interrupted by servants led by Curio entering with refreshments which they set before Crassus.

  “Wonderful. Thank you, Lucius,” domina said. He nodded, taking his place against the wall opposite mine.

  “Ah, plums,” my lord said, biting into one whose tartness was instantly apparent. “My favorite,” he said, wincing.

  “Everything is your favorite,” domina said.

  “Alas, I am a politician.”

  “I wish I could convince you to remain a politician. Remain, husband.”

  “What’s this? Now comes a change of heart?”

  “Every day steals hours from this moment until the instant of your departure and pushes them between us and Caesar’s offense, making it more distant. Revenge is close upon us. It is real and terrible, and Luca fades. I am afraid, Marcus.”

  “Now, now, we cannot falter, columba. We must be strong.”

  “Is there no other way?”

  “It is the way upon which we have agreed. It is the way for which we have planned since Luca.”

  “The senate has denied you.” Her voice was a stew of regret and hope.

  “It is of no consequence. As proconsul and governor of Syria, my commission is invested with imperium and absolute authority over both civil and military decisions. We leave for Brundisium.”

  “Allow me, then, to travel at least that far with you.”

  “No, love. Let us say our goodbyes here, in our home, surrounded by things familiar and cherished. I would rather my memory paint your face in this setting, than bid farewell to you among strangers.”

  “In that case,” she sighed, “I have a surprise for you.” Her voice was bright, but brittle. She held out her slender fingers and for the most imperceptible of moments, Crassus hesitated to take it. He did, of course, but by then it was almost audible—the sound of another stone being set in the wall that had been rising between them, keeping them from being at ease with each other. Ever since that night.

  Caesar, the silent mason.

  We followed them out through the tablinum into the smaller of the two peristyles, the one framed on all sides by the portico supported by eighteen granite columns. The tangled vines of wisteria that clung to the gutters were bare, a gnarled and forlorn beard framing an open rectangular mouth. How different they would seem in summer: clusters of fragrant, pale purple hiding the ugly bones from which they always sprang with such elegant enthusiasm. I would not see their blooms next year, or ever, but I did not know that then. Like these vines, we cling to the rhythms of what we know. Change is never without its perils. I could do with less of it.

  When we walked past the lararium, I could see that Tertulla had made an offering of honey cakes and wine in the little alcove, arranging them at the foot of the image of the paterfamilias. Dominus smiled at her and she graced him with a look I hadn’t seen in months. I followed them out into the open courtyard, past the near fountain and the painted marble statues spaced between the symmetrical rows of rosemary, silverbush and planters of passiflora.

  Tertulla’s personal servants had carried the master’s couch from the dining room and set it among the six lotus trees that mark the center of the peristyle. Their leaves rustled, tugging at the smooth, grey branches. Every now and then a glossy, golden spear would heed the whispering wind, forsaking its anchor to sail in its first and final spiral to the ground. I watched the leaves take the only journey they would ever know and wondered, is there freedom in death or, as the leaves learned each autumn, death in freedom?

  Once again, Curio and I made ourselves inconspicuous beside opposing pillars, both to our masters, and each other. Where was Hanno? He would usually come running for a hug and a head scratch the moment he heard I was in the domus. He was probably with the stable master; still, I felt an acute need for one of his hugs. I worried about Hanno being left on his own. I worried more about leaving little Felix behind, and most about Livia not being able to stay safe with him at home. We would be gone so long our own son would not know us upon our return. So many choices over which to fret. My mind was clogged with worry. And the culprit once again: change. Did perturbation increase in direct proportion to the amount of change? I think it must be so.

  Before the lectus was a low table holding an amphora of Falernian wine, a wheel of warm bread, a variety of cheeses from Trebula and date plums which had ripened on the bows above our heads. A large wooden chest sat nearby on the gravel. Tertulla bade dominus sit, and he reclined on the couch reserved for the head of the house, whi
le she arranged herself on the pillows at its far end, lying on her right side so she could face him. She nodded at a ministratore who broke the clay seal on the wine and poured it through a strainer into a mixing vessel. My lord and lady looked grateful for the formality and familiarity of the serving rituals to put them at their ease. The slave added half as much water to the wine and poured the diluted mixture into two silver drinking bowls. Another servant tipped a ewer of perfumed water over their hands, then dried them with a soft towel.

  “Mars awaken!” Tertulla said, holding her bowl aloft. “May Jupiter Invictus grant victory to Crassus and Rome.”

  Dominus told her that he went for her, not for Rome.

  “Then do not go,” she said lowering her bowl and her voice. “Let us find another way.”

  “I am resolute,” he said. “And I will be victorious.”

  Domina complained of the time they would be apart. “Who will be my hero,” she said, “and catch the mice for me now? We shall be overrun by the time you return.”

  Crassus took her hands in his and kissed her cheek. “That was a long time ago,” he said, not unkindly. “Is that the surprise?” He pointed to the chest.

  Tertulla sighed with resignation. “You’re going to like this,” she said as cheerfully as she could. She got up, went to the chest and pulled the lid up to reveal its contents. Dominus rose respectfully to join her. The trunk was filled with clothes and armor. There were extra tunics and two pairs of hobnail caligae. Beneath these were a fine silver balteus from which would hang a new gladius with a golden hilt and a smaller pugio dagger. Crassus dug further into the chest, admiring first an embossed leather cuirass, then a padded subarmilis to keep his armor from chafing. It was complete with leather pteruges; he ran his hand appreciatively down the finely worked fringed strips. There were several sizes of cloaks, boxes of toiletries, and other packages containing little gifts, sweetmeats and remembrances. Wrapped in muslin was a small bronze statuette of one of our household lares.

  “It is a duplicate,” Tertulla said. “I will implore mine to perform its task well—to protect and preserve our family, all our family” (she looked at me, I glanced at Curio) “and to bring my loved ones home to me, safe and unscathed.”