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

by Levkoff, Andrew

  As we coaxed our horses away from the officers, Apollonius was being dragged up the hill to be presented to Crassus. A woman, his wife most likely, stumbled after him, wailing. Whatever courage or arrogance that had once filled that rough hewn face had leaked away, leaving wide-eyed panic and terror that confounded his muscles and chalked his once-ruddy cheeks. Soon, his head would be on a pole planted above his burning city’s gates, but worse would come before the end. The woman, if she lived, would be sold with what was left of her people—2,500 men, women and children to be sent back along the lines, their old life gone, their new one hardly deserving of the name. If I stayed long enough in this place, I would be able to watch the reenactment of my beginning as a slave pass before my eyes, including all the appropriate props and participants: innocents, victims, chains, carts and cages. And Zenodotium was one town, one small engagement.

  Orodes would learn what he wanted to know, and his fear would grow. Crassus had allowed his men a display of ruthlessness, a tactic this Parthian king would find quite reasonable.

  Melyaket and I urged our horses down the hillside to the pleading song of Apollonius’ widow-to-be and made our way past the growing tower of dead legionaries. Just as we were about to pass the bridge that led to the city, we saw Betto and Malchus carrying out one of our own.

  “We volunteered,” Betto said to my questioning look. Their rank absolved them from this bitter duty.

  “Hold a moment,” I said. “I know this man.” The corpse, his vine stick still neatly tucked inside his belt, was that of the embittered Lucius Vinicius who had chided me on the ramparts when I had met Ludovicus. “This man was primus pilus for Legion V. I heard he volunteered for this assignment.”

  “More fool he,” Betto said as they lowered the corpse to the ground.

  “Give it a rest,” said Malchus.

  “He felt he’d been passed over and wanted any job that might lead to promotion. Poor man.”

  “That’s a bad death, that is,” said Malchus. “A death without honor.” There were four broken shafts protruding from Vinicius’ stomach and chest.

  “Look behind you,” said Betto. “If I were him, if I were any of these boys, while their executioners were pulling back their bowstrings, I’d be praying for vengeance, and right now they’re getting their wish ten times over.”

  “Did you hear,” Malchus said, “there’s talk of acclaiming the general imperator.

  “I still don’t believe it,” Betto said. “This wasn’t even a battle.”

  “Who knows,” Malchus said. “Maybe some of the legates passed the word down the line to have the men talk it up, you know, to boost the general’s confidence.”

  “Dominus needs no confidence boosting,” I said.

  “Alexander,” Malchus said, “it has been a while since he’s been in the field.”

  How embarrassing, to be offered this grand accolade for a ‘victory’ as paltry and as vicious as this. “I sincerely hope he rejects it.”

  He didn’t.

  Betto said, “We saw your friends while we were inside.”

  “You don’t need to tell me. Herclides and Palaemon.”

  “They’re a disgrace,” said Betto. “I won’t say what we saw them doing; it’s an embarrassment to the uniform.”

  “We should have dealt with them when we had the chance,” said Malchus. “The least they deserve is exile.”

  “Or an unfortunate accident,” said Betto.

  “Couldn’t you stop them?” I asked.

  Malchus looked shame-faced. “They weren’t the only ones,” he said quietly.

  “At least we’re not tent-mates,” Betto said, “Now, could we get a move on, please? A little respect for the departed?”

  He reached down and made ready to lift the dead centurion up under his arms. “By the way, who’s the native? I like his baggy trousers.”

  I introduced Melyaket to my companions and moved on quickly before Betto said something everyone would regret. We rode north along the river until the sounds of anguish and vengeance were only a memory, but one that wouldn’t let me be for weeks. We let the horses graze and sat near the bank by bulrushes taller than a man. “You cannot stay,” I said, tossing a stone into waters of molten silver. “After today, no one could guarantee your safety, not even Crassus.”

  “It may be so.”

  “You shall miss our talks. You could have learned much.”

  Melyaket laughed. “I regret I did not have the opportunity to meet your wife.”

  “I never told you…ah yes, I forgot, you’re a spy.”

  “Men speak of her hair with reverence.”

  “She will be pleased to hear that all her years of training have earned her such high regard.

  Melyaket shrugged. “It’s true—good healers are rare, but a color such as that red in this part of the world, what can one say, it borders on the miraculous.”

  I was about to say that I had never disclosed that Livia was a healer, but caught myself in time. We shared some water and bread; I apologized for the horrors we had witnessed.

  “You’ve lived too long among these Romans,” Melyaket said. “You’re not one of them. They won’t let you be one of them. As I told you at the races, you should feel angry, not responsible.”

  I stared at this young, handsome warrior with the soft, smiling eyes. “I withdraw the advice I gave you then. You’re quite old enough. No more aging for you.”

  “Shh! Be still,” he whispered. Crouching low, Melyaket crawled to his horse and without a sound removed a wide, leather case, then slid back to me. It held two compartments, one filled with arrows; from the other, he quietly withdrew a bow unlike any I had ever seen. It had far too many curves. As he strung it, he said, “Keep watch across the river, just north of us. Think you can reach the far bank with a stone?”

  “Unless you know Palaemon or Herclides by sight, I trust we are not going to kill anyone.”

  “I’m ready,” Melyaket said, nocking an arrow. “Aim for that clump of reeds just beyond the bend. Stand up very slowly.” I did as I was told. The stone sailed across the river but fell just short of the other side, making a modest splash just shy of my intended target.

  “Ta’us! They’re running! Quick, up there.” We scrambled up the small incline and scanned the far side of the river, lined with waving grass and reeds, a mirror likeness of our own bank. But for Melyaket’s agitation, the bucolic spot seemed as tranquil and lovely as a garden.

  Of a sudden, the Parthian raised his bow and loosed an arrow in a high arc across the river, at what I had no idea. Before the missile had reached its zenith, he stood ready to fire again. An instant later there was a great commotion on the other side. Half a dozen abnormally large birds flew into view just above the grass. “You’ll never hit one,” I said. “They’re flying away from us.” But Melyaket had already loosed his arrow.

  Without waiting to see where it landed, he gathered his things and urged me to do the same. We rode across the river; surprisingly deep for the summer, it rose to our horses’ bellies.

  Melyaket had wasted neither arrow. “We call them mescejn, flying feast,” he said as we dismounted on the opposite bank. The birds were of mammoth proportions; a marriage between goose and vulture, but twice as large, and with their white, tan and brown markings, twice as beautiful.

  “I should say so! They must weigh forty pounds apiece. What marksmanship!”

  “The gods allowed us some luck today, seeing that we part company.” Melyaket tied them together and slung them over Apollo. “A gift for your general.”

  “I have nothing for you,” I said.

  “I am giving you nothing.”

  “Oh, I believe I’ll manage at least one supper of table scraps from your generosity.”

  “Eat well, then. If it makes you happy to give something in return, convince your general to do as I have told you: hug the mountains, follow the river, avoid the open plain.” (In the weeks and months that followed, in every meeting
of the commanders where heads were bent, not in prayer, but in concentration over the map of Mesopotamia, I repeated the advice of Melyaket puhr Karach. The greatest irony of these discussions of the invasion of King Orodes’ empire was that the legate who voiced the loudest support of the young Parthian’s strategies was Cassius Longinus himself.)

  Melyaket promised he would return when he could. He told me he would not forsake his charge. I asked him to explain, but his reply was a grin and a scratch for Apollo behind his ear. We shook hands and parted as friends.

  Chapter XXXIII

  54 BCE - Fall, Antioch

  Year of the consulship of

  Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher

  Crassus garrisoned half a dozen towns in Parthian territory with seven thousand legionaries and a thousand cavalry. In September, we headed west and crossed back over the Euphrates to return to Antioch. In the Regia, two welcome sights awaited us: a packet of letters from Rome, and Publius, arrived early from Gaul. The celebration that night was raucous, overstuffed with meats, wines, braggarts and Celts. Hanno was so upset with Publius for not bringing any chariots with him, he stayed in our room and wouldn’t come out all night. Livia managed to get him to drink some poppy juice with honey and water to settle him down. He slept well into the next morning, just before his unwitting participation in my destruction.

  For the occasion, Livia had piled up her red hair, held high with threads of gold, and she wore a pale green tunic cut of some sheer fabric to whose maker I would always be indebted. At the first opportunity, she and I slipped away to seek out the locked correspondence box on the moonlit gallery table where the heady scent of citron still lingered. We both hoped to hear news of Felix, but more than that, I prayed there might be some plea from lady Tertulla begging her husband to relent from his present course.

  “Are you sure this is all right?” she whispered.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said, searching for the hem at the back of her tunic with my left hand while I fumbled for the key with my right. “Of course it’s all right. It’s my key.” The noise from the banquet hall was a distant echo.

  “Then I guess it’s all right,” she said, and her legs parted ever so slightly. I dropped the key.

  Over the next few moments, from a distance, one would have thought that we were simply two people standing still very close to each other. One would have been mistaken. Out of breath, eyeing the cool expanse of inlaid stone, I said, “A cluttered table is the emblem of a busy mind.”

  “Or a cluttered mind,” Livia said.

  “Either way, there’s plenty of room for us.” Livia had hopped up on the polished surface before I could assist her; in one smooth motion she lay back, bent her elbows, rested her head on her hands, and wrapped her legs about my thighs. There was nowhere else for me to go, and nowhere else I preferred to be. I took hold of her hips and found her. In my haste, she gasped, but nodded fiercely thereafter. Our eyes stayed locked upon one another, even as the slow frenzy of our bodies pulled at us to lose ourselves. We held on, each seeing the other, not letting go, until finally at the end, as rhythm became spasm, I fell into her arms.

  “I still miss you,” I murmured into the damp, disheveled hair that had fallen about her ear.

  She turned and kissed my neck. “I still want you.”

  “Again?”

  “No, there’s no time. But let me say it here, while we are still one, while the moonlight carries the scent of the garden to our senses. I love you, Andros, with all my strength.”

  I lifted my head to see her face transformed by the night: green eyes—black pearls, pale cheeks—living marble. “I live for you, little fox.”

  “Don’t. Don’t cry, Alexandros. What will Publius say when we return to the party?”

  “He will say,” I said, collecting myself, “‘Praise Jupiter, for Venus, abducted from our midst, is returned. Here, too, comes Momus, god of mockery and satire. The light and dark that had fled our celebration are now restored to us that we may see.’”

  “You know,” Livia said, sliding us off the table and rearranging her clothes, “he probably would say something like that. But be careful, Andros. Momus’ sharp tongue got him banned from Olympus.”

  “As long as we leave together, I am ready for exile.”

  Hunting for the key, I asked, “How goes it with Musclena?”

  “Still an ass. Still limping. It hasn’t helped that when the army camps in Antioch, I sleep with you here in the Regia.”

  “Does the man expect you to stay in the slums of the fort town?”

  “Of course he does. And I wouldn’t mind, either, except that you’re here. Nebta and Khety send their love, by the way. Don’t worry, I take my satisfaction where I can find it. Somehow, my treatments for headache and toothache have made it into the general log book. Here it is!”

  We put everything aside save the letters from our lady, of which there were many. I braved Livia’s temper to scan each of them myself for word of Felix, for I and I alone was privileged to read dominus’ personal mail. And then there was always the possibility that my death warrant was among the sealed pieces of parchment. What would I do if I found it? But then I realized if Tertulla had read my letters to her (I had written more than once) and called me ‘traitor,’ she would have sent word secretly and separately to dominus, instructing the courier that her note be hand delivered to her husband and her husband alone. I would not know that I was doomed until they came for me.

  Felix, Crassus was informed, was healthy and happy. Here were a few dim pictures of our son viewed through a window that was barely older than when we had left him. Tertulla’s latest letter to dominus was dated Martius, when Felix was six months old. He would be almost a year old now. Was he standing? Walking? Did he have his mother’s eyes? It was cruel beyond measuring to experience his first months secondhand. I was halfway through recounting how Eirene had taken him in a basket to his first festival when Livia stopped me. “I don’t want to know, Andros. As long as he is healthy. I’m sorry. We were stupid to be in such a hurry to torture ourselves.” She kissed me and walked quickly to the entrance of the gallery before turning back to me, her smile weak and forced. “I’ll let them know you’ll be back shortly.”

  I understood and agreed with my wife’s sentiment. But I still had work to do amongst these letters. If there was a positive reply to the note I had sent over six months ago, it would be in the form of a plea to Crassus to return home. But if I found encouragement for his invasion plans, I would know I had failed to convince her. I scanned every letter, and there were dozens. Yet there was no definitive signal either way. My frustration peaked when I realized that it was entirely possible that Tertulla’s reply to my letter might still be in a courier’s pack on its way here, that I had not allowed enough time for my correspondence to reach her and for her response to return to Antioch. No matter, for in short order, I was to discover that I had no time to wait for my lady’s reply. I had to act, and hope that when my intervention was discovered, reason would prevail.

  •••

  Crassus had drunk too much wine, such was his joy at seeing his son returned to him. Later, I knocked gently on one of the towering doors to his private quarters to see if he had any last needs before retiring. When I entered, I found father and son together, drinking not wine, but citron flavored water.

  “Alexander! Come, join us,” Publius said. He was still wearing his military finery, including a chest’s worth of gold phalerae, nine all told. They reclined on couches by the bathing pool. “Pour yourself a cup of this marvelous drink. There’s honey there if you find it too tart. Father and I were just discussing our departure date.” Publius had thrown his sword belt on the floor, but his father, already in night clothes, had withdrawn the weapon from its scabbard, hefting it for weight and balance. I stood between them, feeling inexplicably ill at ease.

  “A gift from Culhwch,” the young Crassus said. “Longer than a gladius, better reach. I�
�ve had them made for all my troopers. But Father, if things go the way I’ve planned, there’ll be no need for you to draw a sword. You and Alexander may sit, relax, and count the treasure at your ease.”

  “The way you’ve planned! Publius, you forget your place.” So, there it is—a clash of hubris in the air.

  “Is it not my place to serve you? Will I not do this best by using that spatha you hold in your hands to sever the head of whatever Parthian general they send against us?”

  “I have seven legates, Publius, all accomplished commanders. Now, I have eight.”

  Laughter is not always a welcome sound, as Publius was now proving. “Accomplished, I don’t doubt it. Within the last decade? Please. There is not a commander south of the Alps with as much fresh experience in the field.”

  “I’ll say good night, then,” I said.

  “Stay,” Publius commanded. “Tell Father, since wine does cloud the vision, that while it is true that all eight of his commanders have been in the field, only one of them has been conquering the enemies of Rome. The rest have been planting grain. Is it not so, old friend?”

  I shuffled my feet and glanced longingly at the door. “Is there anything else you require?”

  “Alexander, you have grown useless in my absence.”

  “Let him be, Publius. Would you have him set father against son?”

  “I’d have him tell the truth. Father, imperator, I did not race all this way from Gaul, driving a thousand Celtic men and their mounts past limits of which even they were ignorant, arriving two months earlier than planned just to put the horses out to graze. Let us go to war!”

  “No, my headstrong son. You are right, it is too early for winter quarters, but it is too late in the year to start a campaign. The rains will be here within a month, two at the outside. I will not risk it, especially when there are other conquests more readily at hand.”

  “The men could march double-time.”

  “The men are not ready,” Crassus said. “Alexander, did you not teach Publius the importance of listening? I’m sure his mother did. Have we written Tertulla today, Alexander? I find myself missing her most acutely.”