I pressed my forehead against Livia’s and sighed. “Little fox, you are a storyteller of singular merit. It would do my heart good if you never recounted another such as this again.”
“I won’t, but don’t you want to hear—”
“No.”
“I must tell you about the—”
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
“Hmph. I thought you’d take at least a little interest in my rape story.”
“Oh gods, I’d forgotten. But you weren’t raped.”
“No.”
“Then, please, love, I beg you, just the summary points.”
“As you wish. If you remember, Nebta and Khety grew up in a city on a canal just west of the Nile.” I nodded. “And you know they’re whores.”
“And strong swimmers. And large-breasted. Yes, these things have been established. And for them all I am truly and eternally grateful.”
“So, my breasts do not please you?” Livia pushed herself together to emphasize her cleavage.
“I love your breasts for many reasons. I love their breasts for the part they played in saving your life. And given the opportunity, I would immerse my hands in scented unguents and offer up unto that entire harvest of pendulous fruit the careful, methodical, caresses of infinite gratitude. Do continue.”
“And you haven’t even seen them. Once ashore, the three of us became inseparable. I couldn’t sleep with you…”
“I begged dominus. He could have made an exception, made you his personal physician, placed your quarters adjacent to his. He said it would destroy morale.”
“And he was right, Andros. Inside the camp is no place for a woman.”
“And outside is better?”
“It’s not so bad. Our tent is large, the girls are popular; they’ve even hired on servants and a mule.”
“I suppose it could be worse. At least dominus was thoughtful enough to post guards for your protection.”
“Oh, that wasn’t dominus. That was Octavius. He posted legionaries at all the brothel tents to maintain order. A good thing, too, or my rest would go from little to none. Which brings me, once again, to my clever friends.” Livia unsealed the wine skin and drank.
Octavius? Once again, I had failed my lessons in the Academy of Crassus. What presumption to think that my thirty years of service, my contubernium with his own house healer, my advice and loyalty would raise the two of us above thirty-odd thousand others in his thoughts. At the sight of those guards, I had believed he was looking out for us, protecting my wife, displaying some concern for us beyond our use as pieces in this vindictive game he played. Why am I not inured? Why with each passing year does it become more urgent that Crassus show me some genuine sign of understanding, appreciation, friendship?
“Pelargós, why aren’t you looking disgusted?” She poked me. “You weren’t even listening, were you?”
“I am sorry, love. Am I completely mad, or did I hear something to do with frogs?”
Livia sighed and repeated another tale of the resourcefulness of Nebta and Khety, and this time I did my best to pay attention. The two prostitutes had insisted their new friend share their tent (easily purchased after a night’s work in the crate-clotted alleys off the Dyrrachium docks). It was the evening of their first day’s march up out of the city, before Octavius had organized guards for the camp followers. One very inebriated, very determined young legionary could not be convinced that Livia’s red-hemmed tunic was anything but a costume and was willing to pay double to play “healer and patient.” Khety stayed the attentions of her own client, pulled her hanging veil aside and told the man he did not want this woman, that she was sick with the river slime. Livia was on her knees, her back against the tent wall. Khety set a lamp on the hemp rug. “Look for yourself.” Livia jumped as Khety lifted her tunic. The man leaned in to leer at the target of his lust, swallowed heavily and lurched backwards from the tent. “You touch this woman,” she told the soldier as he staggered off, urgently looking for any safe place to deposit the contents of his stomach, “you never be able to touch another, not with anything between your legs, I promise you that.”
“Am I to understand then, that Khety reached under your tunic and smeared green slime on your vagina before showing your nakedness to a stranger?”
“Green slime with little black dots. Frog’s eggs. The women collect it by the riverbank, store it in jars and take it out whenever the need arises. What’s your preference, husband, show it to a stranger, or let him take it?”
I grimaced. “Does it…are there…you know…?
“Wash off? Smell? Are there little tadpoles swimming around inside me? Does that encompass all your queries?”
“Give my imagination time. Tonight I may wake in a cold sweat with more.”
“At least you have a tent to yourself.”
“A pity we cannot trade. We would see who gets more rest. Crassus is plagued by nightmares.” Dominus had sworn me to secrecy, but that was before my “marriage,” before Felix, and before I had almost lost my wife to the madness of our master’s scheme for revenge against Caesar. She had a right to know. After I had finished telling her the story of what had transpired at Luca, I was stunned by her reaction.
“You make too much of it, Andros. These men will do what they will do. You say you don’t believe in Olympus, love, but you are wrong. There are gods, but they don’t live in the clouds, they walk the earth. The best we can do is stay out of their way and keep from getting trampled.”
Chapter XXIV
55 – 54 BCE - Winter, On the March
Year of the consulship of
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives
The sun was still bright, but the chill of the afternoon was beginning to bite through our layers of blankets and clothes, and there was no mulsum left to warm us. Our talk of Luca and Caesar was ill-timed. I had poured vinegar over honey.
“I miss our son,” Livia said.
“He is safe.”
“No. He is not here. But he is not safe.”
“Crassus will be victorious, we will return home in triumph, then dominus will exact his vengeance upon Caesar.”
“And condemn Felix to this.” Livia hooked a finger under the chain of her slave plaque, lifted it off the ground and dropped it again.
“There must be a way for us to live and also for Felix to be free. The solution will come to us.”
“War will come to us.” She shrugged.
I turned to face her, smoothing the hair from her face. “I have failed, Livia. Wait, let me say this to you, for I have never spoken of it to anyone.” I picked a twig from her tunic and took a breath. “When I was young, before I was captured, I used to think I would achieve something extraordinary with my life. Not that I was destined for greatness, mind you, but that if I applied myself, I could make great things happen. I would be a great man. Now don’t laugh, this is hard for me to admit. I used to think, there will be famous men among my generation, why shouldn’t I be one of them?”
“What was so important about fame?”
“When you’re young, you think anything is possible. Even fame. But I wasn’t seeking notoriety. I wanted to make a difference; perhaps become a great philosopher and change the way we see the world. Or a sculptor. A playwright. I don’t know, something. Have you never felt this way?”
“Not ever. But I love that you feel that way.”
“Felt. When I was taken, I could hear the gods laughing.”
She took my hand and kissed it. “I am here, and I am not laughing. You would have done it, Andros. You are just the sort to make such dreams come true. If they’d only let you be. I curse them for it.”
“But, love, that’s the thing. After Luca, I began to think I’d been given a second chance.” Livia cocked an eyebrow. “Caesar’s attack on our lady. A tragedy for our brave mistress, and I weep for her. But she is a woman…”
“And women are skilled in manipulation, but hold no other pow
er.”
“It is the way of the world—women must stand in the shadow of men, both great and small.”
“Not this woman.”
“No, most certainly not you. But Caesar casts a shadow Crassus cannot escape,” I said, lifting a chin in the direction of the camp. “See what a man who has achieved greatness may accomplish by the sheer power of his will and his purse. Dominus has always held us gently in the palm of his hand, but now he has closed his fist. I fear for us all. He is consumed by Luca, and will not be content until he has avenged himself upon Caesar.”
“You call this greatness?”
“No, Livia. I do not. Yet Crassus is a great man, a lord of Rome. And I stand by his side. He has stumbled, and I have tried to right him. If only I could have reasoned with him and steered him from this madness, there would be greatness enough in that. But I have failed.”
“In Egypt, I lost many patients who should not have died. I am certain it is because they did not wish to be healed.”
“I believe you. But you tried. You did everything you could to save them. That is your way. Now, here I am with two patients, one who does not wish to recover from his wounds, and one who I believe would heal the past if she could. How can I do less than you?”
“What are you saying? Lady Tertulla no longer wants this war?”
“I believe she loves as we love; each day the longing for her husband grows stronger. Her doubts could be tipped into the certainty that thousands need not perish to satisfy her need for revenge. And she is the only person other than myself who could help dominus find a different path. She could bring him home.”
“You are a dreamer, Andros. You have as much power over domina as domina has over dominus. Less.”
“It doesn’t matter, Livia. I am the only one who has any chance of success. How can I stand by and let it pass?”
“I do you love you, pelargós, but you are a fool. Thank Athena, your foolishness can do no harm. We are here and lady Tertulla is in Rome. There is nothing you can do.”
“You may be right. But I do know that I have not done enough. This could be it, Livia, my chance to make a difference. What if we could stop this war? What if you were out of danger? I would live the life of a slave ten times over to see you safe.”
Livia kissed my cheek. “You should put that brain of yours to work on how we are going to see our son safe—and free.”
“I don’t know how, but somehow I have the feeling all of it—the war, Felix’s freedom, you and me, it is all connected.”
“There lies your greatness—to discover the connection.”
“Did you know that when you patronize me the green in your eyes turns muddy? I happen to be very serious about this.”
Livia sighed. “You are already great in my eyes; it is you who must learn to open yours.”
“Then I will only see myself through your eyes, whether green or grimy. Still, I fear for us all.”
“Being afraid is a good way to waste time, Andros. Who knows? Maybe you’ll think of something. In the meantime, I will dress the wounded or toss three handfuls of dust upon the dead. And then we will try to find our way home. What more can we do?”
“What happened to you in Egypt? You have grown philosophical.”
“Possibly, or else it is only your perception that is improving.”
I rolled onto her and kissed her gently. “That must be it.” I rose and straightened my tunic. “Now I must leave you briefly to find some privacy.”
“You are funny,” Livia said, sitting up.
“Me? I am comedy’s antithesis.”
“And there you prove it yet again. Andros, it was only a moment ago you were willing enough to take me beneath this tree among a community of lovers,” she said, looking about at the few remaining couples still dotting the woods, “but to relieve yourself, you require a place free from prying eyes. You are funny.”
“In the first instance, if you recall, I had but little choice in the matter.”
“Go. Do you what your quirky self needs to do. If you did not, you would not be Alexandros, and I would love you the less for it.” Livia hung the plaque about her neck and uncorked the wine skin. She wrung it from belly to neck but coaxed only a few drops onto her tongue.
I went a short distance away to find an unoccupied tree, and Livia went to the stream to squat over its mossy stones, cleaning herself to lessen the odds that our union would get her with child. This would be no time for Felix to become someone’s older brother.
Later, as we pulled the cloaks about us for warmth, I said, “We could take Apollo, ride south and in five days be in Elateia.”
“You’re not serious?” She turned her head to scrutinize my face. “You’re not.”
“No. I am not. It is only that in thirty years, I have never been this close to the place of my birth.”
“Do you know what has become of your family?” she said, propping herself up on an elbow.
“Gone. Dead. Does it matter? After he sacked Athens, Sulla moved north to engage the host of Mithridates. Half of Phocis was a smoking ruin. The battle ran south from Elateia, and many towns were sacked and put to the torch. I do not know what I would find there now. But I am certain my memories are sweeter.”
“But your parents might still be alive.”
“That is unlikely, but were it true, then their son is dead. Even if they managed to survive, even if old age has not yet claimed them, I would not haunt them with a shade they would barely recognize. Alexandros, son of Theodotos is no more. Better to keep the perfect lies of the past than to discover an unbearable truth.”
“You are Alexandros to me.”
I kissed her cheek. “Please, do not ever stop calling me that, for I love the sound. I cherish every moment with you, as I am now, as you are. You have suffered greatly, yet I have never met anyone with your capacity for joy, for finding happiness no matter where it is hiding.”
“You will always be my Andros.”
“I will. I promise. But who can I be to anyone else if not the slave Alexander, atriensis of house Crassus. Would those guards back at your tent take orders from Alexandros, son of Theodotos? No, do not look sad. I am the most fortunate of men: a man with two births.”
“And two deaths.”
“Speak rather of the man born the day the first one died. What would have happened had he not been stripped bare and dipped in the hot tallow of Roman ways, month after month, year after year, till nothing of that Greek boy remained, save the frail string that was his center? I will tell you—he would never have found you.”
She took my hands in hers and put them to her lips. “Still, I weep for that poor child.”
I would have spoken of her own ordeal as a child, sold by her father to pay his gambling debts to the slave dealer, Boaz; rented to any house that would pay; watching as her mother sacrificed her own freedom to buy back her daughter’s liberty. But I could not speak of these things. Because of me, that woman had by now died in the silver mines of Laurion. Instead, I said, “Do not cry for me. For Alexander burns bright, a good Roman candle, and here, in your arms, he has found his home.” The kiss that followed was long and tender, and would have been longer still had not a shadow fallen over us.
“Isn’t this a ph…phritty sight.”
We recognized that voice instantly—a man talking as if he had a walnut jammed up under one cheek. We shaded our eyes and looked to see a legionary in full uniform, his face scarred, pockmarked and leering. He was smiling, though his grin was hampered by the tough, ropy flesh that pulled at one side of his mouth, exposing two lonely teeth and the gums that held them on the left side of his mouth.
“Palaemon.”
“Good memory, Mantis.” He spoke to me, but his eyes were on Livia.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.
“Come to fuh…feh…fetch you. The general wanss ephryone back in camph.”
If one didn’t know his character, one could almost f
eel sorry for him. Almost. We stood quickly. Other soldiers were about, rounding up stragglers. “I meant, what are you doing here, on this campaign?”
“Same as you. Come to get a share of that Pharthian gold. Only difference is, Ah’m getting army phay.” There was nothing to do but walk back to camp with this criminal from the baths of Numa strolling right behind us. I was furious, and frightened. If the legions’ ranks were drawn from the likes of him, I shuddered to think how we would fare once the enemy was engaged.
“What about Herclides,” I asked. “Is he here, too?” Palaemon nodded. “Interesting. I suggest that as soon as we get back to camp, we find him and introduce him to Octavius. The legate will be most interested to meet the two of you.”
“You’re chust like all the rest. You think because of this,” he said, pointing to his torn face, “because Ah’m ugly, I’m stuphid.”
“No, Palaemon. I do not think you are stupid because you’re physically scarred. I think you are stupid because science has yet to discover a tool able to measure the imperceptible level of your intelligence.”
The felon’s pale eyes registered anger. While he worked out how he had been insulted, he rested his hand on the hilt of his pugio. “Ah’m here,” he sneered, “there’s nothing you can do about it, and you’ll be seeing more uff me, espheshelly you,” he said, tilting his pockmarked chin at Livia. That was all I could bear; I prepared to pluck a knife free from its sheath, but as in most things, while I made preparations, my wife acted.
Livia turned and stood with her face so uncomfortably close to Palaemon’s he took a step backward. I wondered if anyone had ever voluntarily come as close to that wreck of a face without being paid. “Why don’t I just visit you in your tent?” she said sweetly. Rummaging in her shoulder bag, she added conversationally, “Did you know my mother was also a healer? I’m like her; I always carry my tools wherever I go. Alexandros will tell you; one time she sliced a man’s throat with one scalpel and slit his wrist with another. She did it in less than five heartbeats, and he was three times the size of you. It runs in the family: we’re just as good with either hand,” and now her voice lowered, “and we don’t like being threatened.”
A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven Page 29