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

by Levkoff, Andrew

  “The business of Rome is none of yours.” Dominus’ stare followed a fly’s spasmodic progress across his plate. “Highness,” he added reluctantly, in lieu of an apology.

  “’Not what I heard.” Deiotarus waited for a response, got none and said, “My sources tell me you’re not on Rome’s business. How could you be, when you left the city shy of one blessing: the auspices of the senate.”

  “Let me rephrase, then: my business,” dominus said, stifling a belch, “is none of yours.”

  “Fair enough,” said the king. “You could just be taking up your post in Syria…” Crassus tilted his cup to his lips and emptied it. “…with an invasion force, to govern a province? If I could raise an army this great—”

  “If you could raise an army this great by even a third,” Crassus interrupted, this time belching in earnest, “I might find the need to suffer your impertinence.”

  I winced. From where he sat at Crassus' right hand, Octavius whispered a caution.

  “Calm yourself, legate,” said the king. “We are all friends here. The proconsul knows I have no wish to offend. Cursed with a curious nature, I am. No harm meant.” Some men simply refuse to appear insulted. But then, having felt the sting from the slap on their cheek, know just where to slip the knife, their smile never fading.

  “Oh, of that I am certain,” Crassus said. “For why, with my invasion army at your gates, would you risk my ire.”

  “Now there, proconsul, is something I am certain I do not risk. Why waste your time on a people your good friend Pompeius has already subdued?”

  Crassus smacked both hands to his armrests and made to rise from his seat, but was undone by the wine in his belly. Before he had gained his feet, the Galatian vintage was arguing persuasively for a second airing. He sank back in his chair and instead of making response, drank half a cup of water. Octavius rose instead, and Athena be praised, Crassus' second in command wisely took that moment to call Brenus and Taog forward from where they waited by the great doors at the end of the hall. Crassus did not, or could not object to the interruption; I could tell by his drooping shoulders that he had grown weary. The legate had invited the Gauls, thinking the king might wish to trade tales of their common Celtic ancestors. Deiotarus had as much in common with these Petrocorii as he did with Crassus' forebears, but decided that he, too, would welcome a change in the direction of the conversation.

  Places were made for the Celts at the king’s table and they spoke amiably for several minutes, more about Taog’s size than about the migrations which had brought them so far from their ancestral island origins. As the plates were being cleared for a course of sweets before a display of Galatian entertainments, a side door burst open. Thrust inside by a rush of wind and a spray of rain came Hanno, careening at speed, arms flailing to keep his balance. He was followed moments later by an out-of-breath and terrified Livia, her red hair turned to dripping ropes of rust, a modern-day Cassandra.

  Simultaneously, my wife, Brenus, Taog and yes, I am afraid even I lost all sense of decorum and shouted “Hanno!” all in varying degrees of shock, horror and alarm. Guards and guests leapt to their feet, Hanno slid to an arm-paddling halt before the high table, and Octavius rose with his hand on his knife pommel. The horror was displayed primarily by myself, for four things were instantaneously obvious: not only had someone secreted the troubled young man into our midst, Livia knew about it, had kept it from me, and now she and I, and perhaps others, were in a deadly amount of trouble.

  The king stood, spreading his hands up and out to indicate no action was to be taken. Crassus glowered, but said nothing. He still looked a little pale. “And who might you be?” Deiotarus asked in a voice reserved for royal pronouncements.

  Hanno looked up, overwhelmed by the sound and sight of this tall, white-haired man wearing a gold crown, long fur-lined robes and a necklace made of links of metal squares that would have bowed lesser men. Hanno may not have absorbed much in his young life, but as a person of no consequence, he had learned the only lesson of weight: to recognize and respond to authority. Remembrances of the mighty, one in particular—his mother spreading his fingers while his father drew near, opening and closing the sheep shears—were snipped permanently into the softer flesh of his simple mind, in spite of the kindness shown him in the house of Crassus.

  Fear and compliance overcame him, closing his eyes even as they opened his mouth. He shifted back and forth on his feet as he spoke, big head rocking, maimed hands ungloved and flailing like unpetaled flowers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I’m really sorry because Brenus promised he’d take me for a ride like he did when we were in Rome but then it got dark and he was gone and I thought he went to get a chariot but then he didn’t come back so Livia said stay but I didn’t because Brenus promised. I’m really sorry are the chariots yours would it be all right if he could take me I know it’s dark now but maybe tomorrow?” Hanno opened his eyes and pointed with a thumb. “That’s Brenus right there hi Brenus, he has red hair like Livia but Livia’s is prettier except not now. Brenus is sitting next to Taog hi Taog but Taog can’t take me because he’s too big he’d tip the whole thing over.”

  Octavius was glowing with anger, flailing the Celts with his eyes.

  “Well,” said the king. “You are a remarkable young man. Tell me your name.”

  “Hannibal my name is Hannibal. But my secret name is Hanno.”

  King Deiotarus shielded his mouth, lowered his voice and said to Crassus, “You never miss an opportunity, do you?” Crassus' look of incomprehension held more impatience than query. “The grotesque’s name,” the king supplied. “Someone’s idea of a cruel joke?” Before Crassus could deny that he had anything to do with it, that it was, in fact, his wife’s generosity that had given the boy life and a home, Deiotarus had turned his attention back to Hanno, who was practically dancing on the floor before the king. “I am afraid, young Hannibal, though I would be happy to permit it, the decision does not rest with me.”

  The king looked to Crassus, and Hanno followed his eyes. He saw dominus and me for the first time. “Father Jupiter! Master!” Off like an arrow he ran around the high table and into the unyielding grip of Octavius.

  The legate lost control. “Concealing non-military personnel,” he shouted. “Amongst the legion? I could have you all executed for this!”

  Crassus caught his host’s wry expression and knew he had no choice but to interject, “Easy, commander.” He held up a hand while he drank more water. “The blame here lies with me. It was I who invited the boy to come along. It slipped my mind to have him added to the roster.”

  A very ugly scene was thus averted, or at least postponed. Octavius fairly brimmed with contradiction, but knew better than to voice it in this, of all places, or anywhere, until he had calmed down. Crassus motioned for him to release Hanno, who spilled immediately into dominus’ arms. A slender arm shot out in my direction, beckoning, but I dared not move. Crassus untangled himself, uncomfortable under the amused scrutiny of his host, and Hanno jumped up to spring into my arms. Would I be whipped or worse for returning his hug? I had a son whom I hoped to see again one day, and a wife standing not twenty feet before me. My hands had no choice but to remain fixed to my sides while Hanno pressed his forehead to my chest and locked his arms around me. The lie of my immobility was unbearable. It was matched only by the horror that he was here, now, with us, instead of safe at home.

  Crassus commanded Livia to remove Hanno. She padded behind the dais, mumbling apologies until she stood before me. All the while she cooed to him and pried his arms free, I forced my sight to remain fixed on the front of the hall. Hanno was under no such constraint. He looked up at me as Livia pulled him away and said, “Master, come watch me tomorrow. If you’re feeling better.”

  King Deiotarus turned in his seat to wonder at another member of the Crassus menagerie. Thankfully, there was no time for further interrogation, for dominus got to his feet. He made curt thanks, then made his excuses, cutting
the evening short. A shame, really, for among the several diversions Deiotarus had prepared for us were trained, performing dogs, which I very much would liked to have witnessed, but dominus waved me ahead to wait at the three steps at the end of the platform. In case a shoulder were required to steady him.

  Just as Crassus reached the end of the high table, King Deiotarus said, “Father Jupiter, eh? That’s one even Pompeius Magnus has not discovered.”

  “Do you not worry, your highness,” Crassus answered, knocking my arm aside as I was trying to pin his cloak with its fibula, “that you have left the construction of this mighty fortress to the twelfth hour? It would be a shame for you to miss its completion.” The chatter in the hall fell as fast as a traitor thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. My master, as fine a diplomat as had ever been bred by his city, had uttered an inexcusable insult to his host, under the man’s own roof. My hands hovered in mid-air. It was an affront that made no sense, for King Deiotarus looked little older than my own age, and I was ten years younger than Crassus. However, upon reflection, mention Pompeius in a positive light to Crassus, regardless of the subject, and you are apt to find yourself left alone in the dark.

  Into the silence, the king laughed. “General,” he said, “are you not marching off to war at an equally late hour? What a pity it would be were you unable to visit me when I am done with Blucium, and Parthia is done with you.”

  My face burned as our party walked briskly down the center aisle and out into the night. What had Brenus and Taog done? What had Livia done? The light rain still fell. We pulled our cloaks up over our heads and made for camp. When the other legates had said their brief good nights, I approached dominus, thinking to help him wrestle with his daemons and perhaps discover how many I would be facing on the morrow. He read my mind. “Don’t! Go to your woman and see to that boy. I will not send him back, but do not trouble me with him. We will write Tertulla tomorrow and put her mind at rest. Better he march with us than be a trial to her.”

  What? Should I be happy to have that poor young man with us, as if Hanno could somehow even the scales for our removal from our own son? One of many responses that came to mind, those that would not see me flogged, required me to thank my master. I turned and walked into the wet night without saying a word.

  Chapter XXVI

  55 – 54 BCE - Winter, On the March

  Year of the consulship of

  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives

  Livia had only just discovered that day that the two Celts had smuggled Hanno on board their trireme by claiming he was their servant, when in fact it was they who worshipped him. It had not been difficult to spirit him away: all Brenus had to do was tell the boy they were taking him to see Livia and master and Father Jupiter. Livia, once she had exhausted herself verbally stripping the woad, skin and flesh from their bones, had been watching him for the Celts while they went off to the king’s dinner. He had spied a chariot and bolted, running through the rain to search them out with the news.

  What good would it do now to lecture Brenus about the danger in which he had placed the boy? Hanno was here and there was nothing either of us could do to see him safely home. They thought he would have a place of honor, but Romans know nothing of Lugos. For weeks, Hanno had been sleeping beside their tent, under the guy ropes; spurned even by the slave assigned to the eight-man contubernium whose “preferred” place was at the front of the tent by the flaps. I remember that spot well. That poor man had no reason to be proud, but how could I begrudge him, when that place was all he could call his own? And not even that. Pride costs nothing, yet it is especially precious when it can be “purchased” at someone else’s expense.

  Though it must have been written two month’s earlier, Tertulla’s letter found us not long after the incident.

  Husband, I am furious at what those reprehensible Celts have done. If the journey were not so treacherous, I would have you send Hannibal back to me at once. Promise me you will keep him safe. I know he is happier on this adventure with Father Jupiter than he could ever be stuck at home with me tending the gardens. I would rather be with Father Jupiter as well.

  Eternally, Tertulla

  I asked for and received permission from the general to allow Hanno to share my quarters. Up until that moment, I had been feeling powerless. I realized I had always been powerless. Away from home, from the accounts and the estate, I had control over nothing. Lucius Curio now kept his fingers on the pulse of that elegant creature. It no longer belonged to me. And I realized, like that plot of ground outside the legionaries tent, it never had.

  It took the arrival of an innocent like Hanno to restore my sense of purpose. At least I could get him out of the rain. At least I could see he was well fed. At least I was able to give him a hug whenever he needed one. Or the reverse.

  Outside Rome, here in the world, I was an insignificant man with a couple of interesting metal plaques. The thought of it made me tired. Knowing that Livia and now the boy were close by, sharing the same fate as mine made me both tired and frightened. I did not know what to do. There was nothing that could be done. Not by me. Action was denied me. Thought was my only refuge.

  •••

  After our brief visit with the “old” king, we continued down amongst the bitter Lycaonians, whose country Pompeius had cracked apart and gifted to its neighbors after the war with Pontus. We came then into Cappadocia. To the south, the green hills of the Taurus Mountains shoved up against each other, row after row, till the blank sky froze them grey, then white. There was a trick I had learned as a child, a game I played by myself given the many hours of opportunity, and I employed it now. I could choose any place within my field of vision and in my mind, swap places with it, visualizing with what I supposed was uncanny accuracy what it would look like to gaze back from that other spot toward the place where I stood. Perhaps I should have been a painter. As I say, I did this now. Instead of looking up at the peaks from the valley below where I rode on Apollo near the head of the column, I placed my mind’s eye on a snow-brushed mountaintop and reversed the view. What did I see from such a height? Did encompassing the full majesty of the army take my breath away, a snake of red and gold stretching the length of the valley floor? No, from such a distance, we were barely visible, save for a thin plume of smoke that might have marked our passing, or might merely have been the smoke from a farmer burning brush, or dust from a caravan’s passing. One couldn’t really say.

  Half an hour after the scouts had begun the day’s march, and sounds of breaking camp came through the command tent, the vapor of our breathing mingled above the day’s map as we gathered around the general’s table for the morning staff meeting. It was still dark outside. Servants passed around cups of hot water and small chunks of bacon. After Cassius finished the supplies report, Vargunteius innocently remarked that at this pace, we could be washing our underwear in Ctesiphon by the end of Aprilis.

  The quip earned a few laughs, but silence from the general. He appeared to be making up his mind about whether or not to speak, and then he did. He told us that while we would engage the enemy after a short rest in Antioch, we would not be pushing on to Ctesiphon this fighting season. He offered no explanation to soothe the stunned looks of his legates and would brook no argument. He would say only that his reasons were sound, and that once we arrived in Syria, all would be made clear. He assured us that when the facts were known, his reasoning would be readily accepted. Cassius asked him why then, was it necessary to wait? Why not tell them now? Well, Crassus told him, expecting a laugh, you never know, I might wish to change my mind between here and there. No one thought he was funny.

  I had no warning that dominus was about to make this mad miscalculation, and had I known, I would have done my best to talk him out of it. His error lay not in remaining in Syria but in allowing his officers two months to fret about it amongst themselves with no logic to underpin their general’s pronouncement. There was no need for him to say anything, unless it
was to watch himself assert his own dominance. Why, in a world dominated by Romans, who in turn look to the smallest handful of men to govern themselves, Marcus Licinius Crassus among those exalted few, why he of all people felt the need to assert his dominance, I cannot tell you.

  Nevertheless, by his own hand, dominus had brought the axe down twice upon the floor upon which his own commanders stood. The first blow had been insisting that we sail into the storms of the Adriatic. Then, to rush into winter seas only to be told there had been no need for haste? One error in judgment compounded the other, and quietly, like cobras testing the lid of the basket, the susurrations of doubt began. Words like “confidence,” “leadership” and “ability” were, for the first time, whispered with hesitation and anxiety in dark corners by troubled men of character. The floor had been sound, but hairline cracks were widening.

  Through this fracture I, fool that I was and grant you still am, would try to slip, and save us all. I was dominus’ scribe; there was no need to practice forgery. His seal was readily available. Two more requirements need only be met: in the letter which I intended to alter, Crassus must not reread the contents of what he always signed with a personal flourish, and domina must obey, as she always had, the command of her lord and master.

  No, I fooled myself, there must be still more than this. For this pie to be swallowed and digested, it must be fully baked. With those two measures, the dish was as yet underdone; left as is, I’d be caught and I’d be cooked. To succeed, there was a third essential to which domina was not nearly so accustomed, in fact, if she complied, it would prove a first for both her and her slave: she must also obey me.

  It had been clear from their parting, now that the venture was close upon them, that Tertulla was having serious doubts about the scope and breadth of their vengeance upon Caesar. If she knew she would be parted from dominus a year more than planned, perhaps that knowledge would be wedge enough to pry her husband loose from his strategy. If there was anyone alive who could turn Crassus aside from this madness, it was his wife. This, I prayed, would tip the scales toward peace. Save for Livia, I had never met a more determined woman than the wife of Crassus.