A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (16 page)

I was strong, bursting with stamina, and begged now to learn the offensive skills I would need to be of any use in a fight. My teachers scoffed and told me fighting was the least fraction of a legionary’s skills.
I told them I did not wish to become a soldier; what I wanted to avoid was the feeling of total uselessness should anyone I cared about ever be threatened again. Almost simultaneously my two friends said, “Then you’ve got to learn to be a soldier.”

They taught me marching formations, basic camp construction and layout, how to pitch the eight-man
contubernium
tent, how to strike it and efficiently pack the mule assigned to each unit. I failed to see how this would protect Livia in a scuffle. Nor was I amused when Betto suggested I show the ones I cared about how to hide behind the mule.

One morning in early
October they led me to the stables adjacent to the Circus Flaminius. On their urging, I had let Hanno sleep in. The stable master showed us to three available mounts. Betto came into my stall and was about to remove the tack from where it hung on the wall when he was brought up short by my upturned palm. “Tend to your own beast, good Betto, and let me see if I can calculate through logic what goes where.”

“That would be an interesting experiment to watch, were we not of a mind to be home before nightfall.”

“Let him be,” Malchus said, leaning up against a post to watch.

Betto’s eyes, which even in repose risked bursting free of their sockets, bulged even further. “I can’t look,” he said, walking off across the straw-strewn floor to prepare his own mare. “He’s buying us supper if we’re late.”

After I said good morning to the bay gelding assigned to me, letting him get my scent and speaking polite words of introduction, I covered his back with a felt pad, secured the four-horned saddle by tying off the girth as well as the breast and breech straps. To protect his flanks, I attached pendant cloths to the saddle. The bay took the bit and bridle easily enough so, gently holding the single rein I stepped up onto the mounting block and swung my right leg over the saddle. Once settled, I nodded at Malchus. Smiling like a proud father, he unhooked the stall ropes, patted the gelding’s neck and we backed out of the stall. Betto was still fussing with his mount’s girth.

“On my parents’ farm in Elateia I usually rode bareback, but this arrangement should pose no problem. Race you to the Porta Flaminia and back? Whenever you’re ready, that is.”

Malchus said to Betto, “By the look of it, Flavius, we’ll be back in time for
you
to treat us to a fine and sizable lunch.”

•••

At long last, the day arrived when I stood with both wooden
gladius
and wicker shield in perspiring but determined hands. I was going to learn to how to fight. Not how to wrestle, a sport I had enjoyed with my father as a child, but to learn the way of the Romans, the killing way, with sword and shield, javelin and dagger. We stood before a thick, six-foot tall, vertical training post, identical to the ones used by gladiators preparing for the arena. I would be taught many of their own techniques:  the parry and feint, the over-the-shield stab, the knee-drop and groin-thrust.

Malchus took me through each maneuver, step by step.

By mid-morning it was clear to all assembled, most especially to my embarrassed, humiliated self, that I was useless.

Betto said it best when he observed, “Malchus, he’s useless!”

As much strength and stamina as I had gained, the coordination of sword and shield was simply beyond me. Within minutes I would tire of holding my
scutum
aloft, even the lighter, standard version. Practicing with a stationary post was bad enough; sparring with my friends provided proof beyond question that if my goal was to tread the fields of Elysium before my time, wielding a
gladius
against an enemy with the least particle of prowess was the surest way to transport me there. After all that work! I was uncharacteristically irate; words of solace from Betto and Malchus made my failure all the more frustrating. I hurled my shield and sword to the ground, thoughtless of the damage I might be doing to the equipment. Like a child, I stomped to the edge of the training field where I could hopefully continue my silent tantrum in peace. Betto, not one to let any hornets’ nest be without shaking it to be sure that no one was left at home, followed me, chattering words of useless encouragement at my heels. Hanno made to run after me, but Malchus grabbed the sleeve of his tunic and shook his head. They stood holding hands a few feet from the training post.

Flavius, you have brought this upon yourself.
I spun round; if I could not carve him to tatters with a sword, my tongue, always honed and at the ready, would serve to prick and wound. But then I had a better idea. “Betto!” I growled in a tone even I did not recognize. The look on his poor face stuffed my curses down my throat, but not my frustration. “Give me that!” I snapped, pointing to his dagger.

“Alexander,” he said, suddenl
y timid, “I don’t think that’s—”

“Now!” He removed the
pugio
from his belt and reluctantly surrendered it to me, handle first, looking as if I were about to stab him with his own knife. I held it by the tip of its seven inch blade, thrust him aside and with an atavistic shriek hurled it at the training post, over thirty feet away. By the time Betto finished shouting ‘LOOK OUT!’ the blade was vibrating chest-high in the center of the wood. Malchus, who had instinctively shoved Hanno to the ground along with himself on top of the poor boy, rose on one elbow and let out a whoop that stopped all activity on the field.

“Very good, master,” laughed Hanno, half obscured by Malchus’ stomach.

Malchus slapped the flattened boy on the shoulder and shouted, “That was one throw in a hundred!”

But it wasn’t.

From that moment on, my early morning exercise regimen ended with a good half-hour of knife practice. Not hand-to-hand—I was still a dead man up close, but I had found my combative niche. This gift had its limits, to be sure—for one thing, more than half the time it was the butt of the knife that hit the target, but hit the target I could! It was better than standing by helpless when help was sorely needed. There was nothing I could not do with a dagger. I threw side-arm, over-arm, blade-first, haft-first, over distances that actually drew crowds when I practiced. I could unsheathe and deliver with accuracy from either side; the normal throw when unsheathed from the right, or across the body in a single motion when flung from the left. Anything with an edge and a handle would do:  kitchen knives, carving knives, butcher knives, even
gladii
. It was as if my right arm and wrist had become imbued with a godlike harmony of balance and motion any time a blade was placed in my hand.

I was, to the surprise of all, a natural.

There was no question but that Betto would be my instructor and guide. One day long past, Nestor and Pío, two jealous members of the Crassus household had conspired to relieve me of my household chores, all of them and forever. If not for Betto’s skill with a dagger, not to mention the accuracy of his aim with the remnants of a half-eaten apple, the assassins those two sent to kill me would most assuredly have earned their fee. As for Pío and Nestor, one was dead, the other branded and sent to the mines—as good as dead.

News of my prowess traveled quickly; it was not long before
domina
and
dominus
requested a command performance. They brought the entire household with them. I was quite terrified, but my throwing arm knew nothing of nervous jitters or fear of failure. When it was required of me, I became an engine of accuracy. Even the presence of Livia, her white healer’s tunic singular but superfluous in setting her apart from all others, did not cause my aim to falter. Our eyes met once, she smiled briefly, and that wisp of encouragement gave me more strength than Atlas. At the climax of the demonstration, Betto pegged an apple to the training post and from forty feet away I cleaved it in two. With the blade end of my dagger sunk into the wood, as well.

Crassus and Tertulla came up to congratulate me, then my lord pulled me aside. “
What a surprise, Alexander. I am fairly well astounded. And it sets me thinking. You, more than any man, even my lictors, are by my side night and day. Upon your return home, prepare a posting which I shall sign and you shall lock away appointing you as one of my personal guards. But tell no one. Keep one of your daggers concealed upon you at all times. I know, I know—the law. Better keep it well-concealed or we’ll both be in trouble.

“Now, y
ou may continue your early morning exercises, that is a noble pursuit, but I require that your aim be refocused on more pragmatic targets. There is much planning and preparation to attend to, and I want you by my side in council.”

As she passed, lady Tertulla let her jeweled hand rest lightly on my own, the fine blue sea silk of her shawl, held about her wrist with a golden lion’s head clasp, draped over my arm like fog settling on rough ground. With the lightest of touches, she drew me down to whisper in my ear, the black curls of her perfumed hair brushing against my cheek and neck. “You are faithful and wise, good Alexandros.
”
(My birth name!)
“Stay close to him. Speak your truths as no other dare. Know that both our minds and hearts are fixed on Parthia; do this for your love of me and the will of your lord. He has need of you now; his need will be greater once Brundisium has faded behind the wake of his ships.” The lips which, by those words, funneled the separate fates of thousands into a single destiny now moved lightly to kiss me on the cheek. In the next moment, she had reached for her lord’s outstretched hand, and was gone.

I looked for Livia before she left, but my lady’s appeal and the ebullient arrival of Betto and Malchus blocked both sight and chance of seeing her. In the end, it was just us three and Hanno left to clean up after the display and put the field back into pristine preparedness. Two hours later, as we were walking back down the hill Malchus said, “What other talents have you been hiding in that skinny frame of yours?”

Betto scratched his head. “Can’t think what more there is to teach you. Never seen anything like it. Did you see the look on the faces of those veterans? Alexander, you’re an artist with a blade.” He slapped me on the back with such force I missed a step. The harder the smack, the greater the affection.

Hanno rushed to my rescue. “Stop it!” he shouted. “Don’t hurt my
master’s back. He doesn’t like—”

“…
for you to call me master,” I finished for him.

Malchus stopped and squatted on his haunches before Hanno. “He has scars, Hannibal. We all know that. But you mustn’t be ashamed for him; you must be proud. Our friend Alexander is a brave man. Did you know he fought a Roman general to earn those stripes?”

“He did?”

“That’s right, boy,” Betto said. “And anyway, I was just trying to hand him a compliment. You know what a compliment is, don’t you.”

“I know. A compliment is a nice thing to say about a person.”

“That’s right!” Betto said, impressed.

“Malchus gets them all the time. You don’t.”

“Kid, have you ever heard the expression, ‘respect your elders?’”

“No. But once I heard Father Jupiter say to master, ‘respect your betters.’”

Malchus sputtered. “Give it up, Flavius. You’re outmatched. ”

•••

Later, as we acknowledged the guards and passed through the tall gates into the estate and home, the sight of the wealth and privilege that had swallowed me whole was depressing. I thought of
domina
; did revenge make her blind to the toll their plan would take on her husband? On herself? The rest of us were so far beneath their scheming and their plots, though I stood on the Palatine, a Roman Olympus, to them we served but one purpose, to be the expendable instruments of their designs. The memory of her extravagant scent returned, an insistent rippling of juniper and cypress lapping against my senses, no less seductive than Circe’s perfume was to Odysseus. Unlike the hero, I would never possess any holy herb of moly to defend myself against my lady’s wishes. She might ask, but there was no choice implicit in her perfumed entreaty.

I thought I had carved out a miniscule refuge of freedom within this life, but after years of hiding I could feel the crumbling slide into a deeper darkness, dragging me toward yet another fate I would never have chosen for myself. I looked at Betto and Malchus and poor Hanno, terrified that they, too, would slip and stumble into the abyss
, all of us falling helplessly into the darkness. Something about my practice these past weeks, at once troubling but unformed, chose that moment to coalesce into evanescent thought, and recognizing it, I snatched it from the air. “It is not enough,” I said before we parted company at the atrium, each to our assigned tasks. “You say I am an artist, Flavius? If we stop here, then all my works must remain incomplete, for I possess but half my paints and brushes.”

“Has it occurred to you,” said Betto, “that while you were out looking for the next great lecture series, most of the rest of us were happy just to get laid without our
pricks falling off.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What in Cerberus’s two tongues are you talking about?”