A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (42 page)

“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 feel 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 an
ger. 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.”

“We’ff that in common,” Palaemon said, but his voice was uncertain.

Livia extracted a long, thin, bronze tool from its pouch; it had a fine hook at one end. “I’ve got several of these; some have blunt ends for probing. Not this one; this I use for retracting tissue.” She twirled it in front of his cratered face. “Do you know what else it will do?” Palaemon shook his head, making the cheek protectors on his helmet flap on their hinges. “Once, in Alexandria, an African prince had an inflammation in his groin. As it happened, one of his testicles had gotten infected. I picked up his swollen sac and spread the skin tight.” She made the motion with her thumb and forefinger just in front of his nose. “With a scalpel, I made an
incision, only an inch or so.” Palaemon, fascinated, tried not to look horrified. “Then I took this hook,” she said, reenacting the gesture, “reached inside and felt for the cord that held the diseased ball to the rest of him. One little tug and out it plopped, right into my hand, neat as you please. A snip with a scissors and he was half the man he used to be.”

“You don’t scare me,” Palaemon said.

“Really?” she said, leaning in and holding him with the green of her eyes. “That’s surprising, because, you see, I
liked
him.”

“There’s a centurion up ahead. Octavius will send both you and Velus Herclides packing as soon as he hears there are criminals in the ranks. Centurion!” I shouted.

“Ffeelus said you’d say that. When you did, he told me to tell you and all your friends this:  congratulations on your little son. Felickth, is it?” We froze. “You’re a long way from Rome. And Ffeelus left many frenss behind. So lesss us be frenss, too, and effryone gess what they want. We get our share of the treasure, your boy stays healthy, effreybody’s haffy.”

“What is it?” The officer was short, squat and ugly, the opposite of his plumed helmet and five
phalerae
strapped across his chest. He must have spent hours polishing those medals which he wore with casual pride as they glowed in the afternoon sun. I imagined he was equally proud of the scars on his arms and legs. In three, maybe four heartbeats I weighed the probability that Velus was bluffing (Palaemon was nothing more than his mouthpiece), and even if he wasn’t, no one could ever get close enough to Felix to harm him. I could not even confirm that Herclides was here. “Well?” the centurion pressed.

I was about to have him lay hold of Palaemon when Livia said, “I’ve got something for that arm. Looks like it hurts.” We were walking again. The left gate was only a few hundred feet away.

“This?” he scoffed. “I did that to myself this morning. Tripped on a guy rope. Don’t deserve any salve. And if my men saw it on me, they’d laugh and then I be forced to beat ‘em with my vine stick.” He waved the gnarled and glossy emblem of his rank in her face. “You don’t want to be responsible for that, do you, miss?”

“Look—
” I started.

“Of course not,” Livia said. “I hear the general has something special planned for tonight.”

“That he does. Got some musicians to entertain us. Brought ‘em in from Cyrrhus. Dancing girls, too. Though I guess there’s no pleasure in that for you.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised where I take my pleasure,” my wife said, staring pointedly at Palaemon. He felt her eyes on him, I am sure, but kept his gaze rooted to the dirt at his feet.

Chapter
XXV

55 – 54  BCE   -   Winter, On the March

Year of the consulship of

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives

The higher up the chain of authority it traveled, the less the news of Palaemon’s and Herclides’ presence in the army was of interest. Malchus was furious, demonstrating his ire with personal threats and vows of bloody retribution should anything unfortunate befall
any
person
any
where, not only my family, as a result of contact with those two criminals. Once he’d caught his breath, Malchus then complained to his centurion, who spit, cursed and railed bitterly to Vel Corto,
primus pilus,
that his two sons had been turned away when they might have had a place in the ranks but for this breach in army regulations. Corto, the highest ranking centurion in the army, annoyed that he had been interrupted during a winning round of
latrunculi
with
legate Petronius, had the soldiers brought before him. Both men were in the 9
th
cohort
of Legion VII, not a particularly senior posting. But the lead identity tags in the pouches around their necks were in order. Malchus said he would bear witness against their treachery, so Petronius said there was nothing Vel Corto could do but refer the matter to Gaius Octavius, legate of Legion I. Velus Herclides, his beard regrown so full it almost hid the sly grin he’d been saving for this moment, handed Octavius the letters of recommendation signed by P. Crassus himself, and that was the end of that.

•••

“Read me that last one again.”

We were encamped near Pella
. No, that’s not true. Our camp was close by the few shoddy structures crouched disrespectfully among the cracked and fallen columns that were once known as that great meeting place of nations, but this ruin did not deserve to claim the name of Pella. Here there had been art, intellect, grace and science, for this had been the capital city of Philippos of Macedon, father of the great Alexandros. But neither man nor Nature had smiled upon this once-great megalopolis. More than a hundred years ago, Pella had suffered the same fate as a thousand other city-states:  everything of value had been spirited away by the Romans, and what they left was not worth keeping. The soul of the city had been torn away, and the tatters that remained were enough to mourn, but not to give hope. Any stout-hearted citizens who endured to begin rebuilding were thoroughly discouraged not long thereafter, when an earthquake that would have knocked the teeth from a Titan razed what little the Romans had left standing.

Now,
Pella is a monument to the Ephemeral. Alexandros conquered the known world, and this is what has become of his palace in a mere three hundred years. How will it look in a thousand? Crassus wanted to march his army all the way to India and the Outer Sea. When I think about these things, even now they still make me chuckle.

I reached into the courier’s tube and withdrew
the innermost among several dozens of letters. We were in the general’s tent; Crassus lay on his side, ready for bed in his night tunic, his head propped on pillows at the foot of his
lectus
. We had waited to begin reading Tertulla’s packet of letters until after the young man sent by Livia had left. The apprentice healer had massaged
dominus’
feet with a salve meant to alleviate his soreness and the pain from his bunions. The jar of brown paste my wife had concocted now sat open on the general’s night table by his glossy toes, creating an eye-watering zone guaranteed free from arthropod or human incursion. I sat in his big chair with two oil lamps between us. Crassus claimed his eyes grew tired toward the end of the day, but he could have waited till morning to read her letters. Did his father read to him as a child? I would have asked, but I was within slapping distance.