A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (21 page)

Her lips were glossy with the taste of honey and cassia. I disappeared into that kiss, and if thinking were a talent I still possessed, I would have wished that the soft mingling of breath and lips would never end. Breaking that embrace was a fall from timeless skies to a mundane present, and neither of us had a desire to remain earthbound.

“Where can we go?” she asked.

“Don’t move,” I said. I pushed the lamps and wax tablets aside and to the astonishment of us both climbed up and over the long worktable and into her arms. It was simply too far to go around. We held each other’s faces in our hands and for a moment let our eyes speak the language our mouths had just relearned.

“Take me to your room,” she said.

“We can’t. It’s just down the hall from
dominus
and
domina
. The clinic?”

“Too far. I will wait no longer. What about there?” She pointed behind me to the locked door
of the pantry. I fumbled in my tunic to pull out the chain holding the key. A second necklace, entangled in the first, glinted dully.

“My scallop,” Livia said. “You’ve kept it all this time.” Her eyes had become brighter in the lamplight.

“If that bracelet of shells had not come undone that day under the statue of Apollo…”

“But it did, and we are here now. You were so clumsy trying to retie the string about my wrist you woke me from my nap. This is fine silverwork,” she said, untangling the two chains.

“Not my doing.
Dominus
insisted his
atriensis
wear a chain worthy of the station. He meant it as a gift, but I prefer the string.”

“Perhaps these links were
made with metal mined from Laurion.” My smile crumpled. “How ironic if a gift from Crassus to you had something of my mother forged within it.”

“Livia.”

“Forgive me, that was a stupid thing to say. I cannot help but miss her, but you are not to blame. It is you that I want, Alexandros. Very much. It is my curse:  my mouth will be speaking long before I even think to advise silence. You know,” she said, her eyes atwinkle, “perhaps I acquired this evil trait from you.”

I laughed, and surprised myself by saying, “I shouldn’t wonder. But you have taught me
how two mouths may hold each other speechless.”

“Then let us be silent, but not still.” We walked to the pantry door holding the lamps and each other.

With the key in the door, I turned to Livia and said, “Are you certain?”

“My sweet man,” she said, caressing my cheek, “
this
is the time for you to be silent.”

Once inside, we kissed again. The press of our bodies soon made plain the state of my arousal. I pulled away. “
Livia, I…”

“Shhh.” She put her fingers to my lips. “You are safe with me,” she said.

“I am unschooled,” I said, my face reddening.

“Then, for once, I shall be your teacher.”

Chapter XIV

56 - 55 BCE   Winter, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus

Now that the first of the year had passed, an interrex had been “found” friendly to my master’s cause; the names of Crassus and Pompeius had finally been put up for consul. In the morning, Betto and I met the line of shivering clients waiting to greet their patron in the daily
salutatio
.
We told them
dominus
was sleeping late, took their lists of requests and promised to pass along their good wishes. Betto then gave each client a purse of 2,000 sesterces with instructions to spread the word among the people that stability and the end of violence could only come with the election of these two venerated conscript fathers, Crassus and Pompeius. They trudged back down the hill, blue-lipped but content. My own people would be following close behind with campaign encouragement in the guise of jingling leather purses.

That
evening, the weather was cooperating only in that it was not snowing:  it was bitterly cold and getting colder, it being near the twelfth hour of the day. Fortunately, the company need not rely solely on their own conviviality to keep warm:  the furnaces were stoked and hot air was blowing beneath their slippered feet, heating not only the floors but the walls themselves. There were so many people filling every public room of the Crassus home that the
triclinia
, of which there were three, accommodating 27 diners, had been abandoned in favor of an endless buffet and an army of servants offering drinks and treats. The front entrance looked like a bootmaker’s workshop, piled high with all manner of footwear.

Dominus
and
domina
, the elegant heart of Publius’ homecoming celebration, were followed wherever they strolled; just now they stood in the main atrium, pressed upon by dozens of well-wishers, eavesdroppers and a few junior senators who I am certain had received no invitation. One who was conspicuously absent:  Gnaeus Pompeius had declined, claiming his young wife, Julia, Caesar’s daughter and Pompeius’ fourth wife, was unwell. She was often ill; the excuse was not entirely implausible.

In time, Pompeius would
marry yet again, as one tragedy heaped itself upon the one beneath it. The gay and carefree nymph he would later claim as his fifth bride was in attendance this night. But that day was yet to come. Tonight, her eyes and heart were fixed with unshakeable attention upon another. Children—their untroubled, idyllic vision of the future is almost always shattered. Sooner or later they learn what all youth must—that life is the cruel fate that awaits them while they make plans for a tomorrow that will never be.

•••

I looked for Livia in vain. She had told me she would not attend; when I balked, she gave me two highly rational proofs. “First, you will be in your element, fussing over every detail.”

“I do not fuss,” I sniffed.

“Second,” she said after an exaggerated inspection of the ceiling, “I love the way you look at me, and so will everyone else should they see us together. We have not yet presented our affiliation to
domina
and
dominus
, and you are incapable of keeping that boy-who-has-found-a-little-fox look from your face.”

“It is a most wondrous and beguiling
vulpecula
,” I said, my face relaxing unconsciously into the very expression to which Livia alluded.

“This is Publius’ day. Let him have it.” There was no logical response to that, but Livia did invite me to bring her a plate of pastries when the last guest had departed.

•••

“Father, guess where Caesar intends to march his armies next? Go on, guess!” Publius popped a
globulus
into his mouth, a fried ball of cheese curd and semolina rolled in honey and toasted sesame. He licked his fingers, held his hand aloft and a dining room slave stepped forward to wipe each finger clean with a damp cloth.

“Forgive me, son, but I am too old to play guessing games.”

“You won’t believe it. Parthia, of all the wind-swept, graceless places on earth. But that isn’t even—”

“What!” Crassus almost choked on a hard-boiled egg dipped in honeyed
garum
.

Tertulla gave him water to sip and whispered urgently, “Husband?!”

“I know!” Publius said. “If it hadn’t been Marcus who told me, I would never have—”

“Wait. Marcus, your brother?”

“Who else, Father?” Publius said, impatience snapping into his voice like the whipping of a wet branch. The boy at play in the dirt had grown into a soldier unaccustomed to interruptions, even by his own father, the holder of
patria potestas
. “He
stopped me just before I rode for Rome.”

“What did he say?” Tertulla asked.

Publius could only laugh. “Mother, Father, I am
trying
to tell you.”

“Perhaps we should wait and speak of this later,” Crassus said. “This is your homecoming, not a campaign.”

“Do you,” Publius said slowly, his voice spiked with exasperation, “or do you not want to hear the bizarre words of Caesar?”

“Yes,” said
domina
. “No,” said
dominus
in the same instant. Though the law favors the
paterfamilias
, sometimes a look may overrule the highest court. “Go ahead, then,” Crassus said. “But try not to shout.”

“
My brother, Marcus,” Publius said, explaining for lady Cornelia’s benefit, “hardly ever leaves the general’s side when he’s in camp.”

“Possibly he believes it better to have a Crassus
beside you than behind you,” said my lady.

“That was unkind, s
weetheart. Caesar is our friend,”
dominus
said.

“What do you mean, lady Tertulla?”
lady Cornelia asked.

“
She jests,” Crassus said flatly. “Publius, continue.”
Dominus
looked at his son as if to say,
later
.

Publius and everyone else within earshot wondered at my lady’s remark, and when Crassus' son spoke again, it was as if each word were a stone poorly balanced in a crocodile-infested stream. “Marcus is the general’s
quaestor
and paymaster:  it is fitting they should converse frequently. Here is the heart of it:  Caesar told Marcus he had consulted the Sibylline Oracles and had discovered an entry stating that ‘the kingdom to the east will never be conquered save by a man who wears a crown.’”

“Extraordinary,” Crassus managed to say.

“So,” lady Tertulla spat, her face pinched with self-control, “he fancies himself a king now, does he?”

“There is more. Caesar then turned to Marcus and said, ‘your father will try, but he will fail.’”

“Outr
ageous,” lady Tertulla muttered.

There were murmurings all around, and Crassus tried to drown them out with a laugh, saying, “Either you misheard, Publius, or else Julius referred to another enterprise, perhaps political, like my campaign to offer assistance to our provincial tax collectors.” Too late. The dormice had scampered from the kitchen.

“How dare he make such a villainous prophecy?” Cornelia Metella said, after an extended sip of wine. Her goblet was refilled almost without her notice. She had staked out her place beside the young commander and was not about to yield it to any rival. Publius seemed well-pleased by her attention, a fact which later would be happily noted by his father and mother, who also cleaved to their son like flowers following the course of the sun.

Publius said, “My lady Cornelia, forgive me for exposing possibly the only two things you
, with your superior education and intellect do not know:  first, you cannot know what you are talking about, because you do not know what
I
am talking about. And second, you cannot know what I am talking about, because I myself am baffled.”

“Ignorance is
an underrated virtue, my lord. I could give a fig for your reasons,” she said, choosing a cheese-stuffed fig from a passing tray. “If something has been said against the house of Crassus, a home where my entire family has found hospitality and friendship in equal measure, then I am that man’s enemy. Even if it be your commanding officer, the noble Caesar.”

“Imagine how you’ll feel,” Publius said, “when you’ve known us more than a week. Lady, may I take your wine?”

“If you’re thirsty, find your own,” lady Cornelia said, twisting away from his proffered hand. “I know my limits.”

Tertulla suddenly spoke up with such bitterness, a dozen heads whirled to attend her. “
Noble
Caesar is but a man. Men make mistakes. Caesar has made yet another: he underestimates my husband.”

Publius appeared ready to speak, but discretion held his tongue. I know what he must have been thinking: 
‘so it’s true, then?’

“
Columba
,” Crassus said, lightly squeezing his wife’s hand, “one of our children has come home to us. Let us make our guests feel as welcome as our son.”

“What’s this is I hear of crafty Crassus failing?” asked a new voice. “The gods, if one could find them at home, would stumble and fall from Olympus, should this be so.”

“Tully!” Publius cried, shaken from his puzzlement. “How I have missed Rome’s greatest voice! With apologies, Father,” he added quickly. The young man embraced his old friend and mentor while Crassus looked on with ill-concealed frustration. The famous orator was old enough to be Publius’ father, yet almost a decade younger than
dominus
. He was balding and more than adequately filled his toga; you might also care to know that when seen in profile, his nose was as prominent as his ego. Like Publius’ father, I viewed his friendship with
dominus’
son and
my
student with the same mild distaste. I know the man’s reputation, and grant his capabilities, but I simply cannot be drawn to a person who carries himself with both the arrogant and aggrieved bearing of one who believes he has no equal, yet cannot comprehend why others have not leapt to the same self-evident conclusion.