A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (25 page)

“Bye, Taog,” Hanno said, climbing out of the Celt’s lap. “There’s Brenus! Look at him go! Taog is too big to drive the chariot. I can’t make the sign with my gloves on. But we can pretend.” He pressed his hands together and bowed his head. “Watch over others,” he began.

“As Lugos watches over you,” Taog finished. He also bowed and linked his fingers. I don’t know what came over me, but I too made the sign, spoke the opening words and bowed my head toward Taog. He finished the prayer, but before his expression of wonder could fully form, I had already turned with Hanno in hand to walk back down the hill.

•••

On the last morning of Februarius, Hanno ran to tell me between gasps that the clinic had been closed for the day. As soon as Crassus finished with me, I walked quickly down the path to the front of the estate. There, the thick walls that kept the
familia
separate and ignorant of the travails of the human swarm below also housed our school and clinic. The sun was just about to break over the hills.

“I knew you would be here the moment you heard,” Livia said. She lay on the
lectus
in her small room, pale and lovely. “Take that look from your face and come sit by me.” I did as I was told. There was a sour smell in the room and a cloth-covered pail by her bedside. Livia took a sprig of mint from a vase by her nightstand and held my hand while she chewed it thoroughly. Then she lifted the cloth and spit the remainder into the pail.

“I’m not ill. Here, feel. Gently.” She guided my hands to her breasts and I felt their swollen weight. “Now,” she said, pulling me to her, “
come kiss the mother of your child.”

Is it manly to cry at such joy? Why should grief be the only beneficiary of our tears? After all we had endured, there were salted drops enough that fell for sadness. I bathed my
vulpecula’s
cheeks with my happiness and did my best to balance the scales. We laughed between caresses and whispered breathless words of affection to mouth, eyelash and ear, but soon there was only one way remaining to express the distillation of a thousand lyric poems. I pulled away from her and asked with insistent eyes. She nodded once and raised her tunic. We were soon lost in a place we hoped never to be found. The sounds we made we did not hear. We were so close, yet still apart, maddened by the atoms that kept us separate. At last, even ecstasy flew apart and we disappeared entirely, blown into a space without thought or boundary or time. At the end, when I found myself in myself again, Livia was there to meet me, breathless and smiling. We lay quietly, holding each other, listening as the sounds of the world slowly became real again. Having gone to that emptiness together, it felt almost sad to return.

•••

Slaves are forbidden to marry. They may form a
contubernium
if the master permits, they may cohabitate, have children, live the simulacrum of a life. When I came to him in his office with the request and the news of Livia’s pregnancy, Crassus rose from his chair and came around his desk. I thought he was going to shake my hand, but he held me by the shoulders, told me I deserved every happiness, then embraced me like a brother. I blinked with surprise and suppressed pride. When he finally released me, his lips were pressed together in a tight smile and his eyes were shining. He rummaged through the clutter that surrounded his work space, but finally beaten, told me to take 25,000 sesterces for myself from the treasury. It wasn’t as if I did not know where the money was stored. I complained of his generosity, to which he responded it was worth every
as
to see an end to the pining he had had to endure for years.

With his wealth and the number of slaves already in his employ, another mouth to feed meant nothing to Crassus. His happiness for both Livia and myself was unsullied by greed. Not so with almost every other Roman slave owner, by which I mean practically every Roman citizen or freeborn.
Even soldiers taking up the non-military life see that their “wives” have at least one, two if they can afford it. The more slaves, the more status. Coupling and procreation by their property is not only permitted but encouraged, for who would not be pleased to get something for nothing. Every child of a slave is born into that same condition, with no rights or property save those given them by the generosity of their masters. Anyone fortunate enough to own a mating pair of slaves is further gratified by the fact that, considering the foreign captives trudging to Rome each year by the thousands, they will be increasing their household with one whose native tongue will be Latin.

Malchus and Betto had conspired to have crafted a gift they were wise enough to present to me when Livia was absent. It was a set of six throwing knives and a supple leather belt to sheathe them. To Livia, they gave a pair of gold earrings with drops of carnelian swinging from gold strands. She thanked them from her heart, but chided that this was not a gift for both of us. While Malchus was saying that I had only to see her wearing them to know they were as much a gift for me as for Livia, at the same time Betto said that this was as much as they could afford. It is surprising that, considering the number of times Malchus has slapped his friend on the back of the head, Betto has not developed a bald spot.

With her husband’s permission, Tertulla gave us the most stunning gift:  a week at their summer villa in Baiae, with no responsibilities or duties other than those small and gracious labors of affection we chose to give to each other every waking moment of each day. Of the nights, suffice to say that Livia was a patient teacher, and I an willing and adventurous student. In our absence, Eirene had eagerly volunteered to watch over Hanno and he, in turn, was not unhappy to share her little
cubiculum
with her until our return. Her fondness for him was genuine, to which the boy readily responded.

While we were gone, I never gave
Lucius Curio a single thought. Not even once.

Upon our return, Livia moved her things into my quarters. Most of her trinkets were Egyptian. I was especially fond of her beaded collars and anklets. By ‘fond,’ I mean they stirred something base and primal within me, and I am at a loss to explain it. One of the myriad
lessons Livia taught me was that some things lend themselves better to experience than understanding. Knowing my taste in this, she would sometimes greet me in bed wearing nothing but a necklace of nephrite lozenges, strung tight about her neck, and a gold anklet above her painted toes. This was the playful Livia, not the workaday version. Her preference was to wear no adornment, but the Egyptians were renowned in the arts of arousal, and during her years there, Livia had learned them all, and learned them well. It was not my place to ask how, or with whom. Or to think about it over much.

I could not wait till Livia and I could share a cup of wine, hold hands and speak of how the day had gone. It became ritual for me to watch her unbind her hair and comb its lengths made gold-red by the lamplight. I sat mesmerized on our bed. She would call me a romantic fool, and I would ask her, who of
us, then, was the greater fool, the besotted lover, or the woman who loves him? Waking in the luxuriant stretch of her arms was a miracle that to my amazement, repeated itself each morning. Romans may not have called our pairing a marriage, but it was that in every way but name. We knew that Crassus would never dream of it, but he could, if he was of a mind, sell either one of us at any time. Even though the threat was virtually non-existent, its lesson was clear:  life is tenuous, joy is fleeting. Who knew this better than we? Some nights when we made love, we found that we could weave ‘forever’ from one timeless moment to the next. It was enough. It had to be.

The spring of our
contubernium
was a time I shall always think upon as a gift beyond all measure; I had never been as happy or content. Yes, I was aware that had I not been enslaved Livia and I would never have met, never fallen in love, never created a child together. The irony of my circumstance would prod me from time to time, but I was quick to let it go. What did it matter? Had I any choice in the matter, would I sacrifice my freedom to spend even five such bliss-filled days with this woman. I would. I swear that I would.

There were no clouds to mar this bright bliss, save for the growing shadow caused by my lord’s preparations to make his vengeful war. Many were the times that Crassus would be forced to rap his knuckles on the table to rouse me from a daydream, but he was
rarely cross and most always playful. I think he saw in us something of the way he and Tertulla used to be before Luca. He could confide in no one, for even Piso was more ally than friend, and the political risks, to say nothing of the personal shame, were too great. I yearned to offer him a place to unburden himself, to be the ear he could find nowhere else. But each of us had our roles. And we would play them until the end.

Chapter
XVI

55 BCE   Spring, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives

Two events occurred in early Aprilis which I feel compelled to relate. Each goes some way toward comprehending, if not excusing, the unfortunate events that follow. Were this chronicle to be remembered…Forgive me. I leap—a performance restricted to pen and ink for this ancient of 86 years—I leap ahead to the present day, to our island refuge to pause for just a moment. Here I sit, scrawling for no one’s amusement but my own, hilly knuckles clutching a fresh reed pen, soon to join his countless, splintered brothers in the trash. The previous conceit has caused me to laugh out loud, but that happy noise has quickly resolved itself into a fit of coughing that has turned my grizzled face crimson. My mind wanders; it is this heat. As I was saying, if I
were
to be remembered, it would be as a master of understatement: ‘unfortunate events’ indeed. You see? It only takes the lapse of three and a half decades and a decaying mind to make plains of the memories that once were mountains.

Pan’s hoof.
I seem to have worn myself out. Perhaps a short nap, then I shall begin again.

•••

There is a bowl of figs by my hand. I do not know how it got there.

•••

Since my arrival in Rome, I have had many opportunities to wonder if compassion’s opposite is cruelty, or to reflect whether or not indifference would serve as a better black to its white. Do you recall how Curio had vanished from my mind while Livia and I dallied in Baiae? Why must there always be a price to pay for every indulgence, and why must it so often be withdrawn from the bankrupt accounts of the innocent?

We returned late to the city. The house was quiet. Livia fell to our couch without unpacking an
d was instantly asleep. Her mind and body were at rest, one untroubled, the other exhausted. My mind and body, as so often was the case, were at odds, and sleep would not come. I walked through the darkened house, scratching lists onto a wax tablet. Finding myself in the servants’ wing, I saw a light. I knocked lightly on the wall beside the portiere and a voice said ‘enter.’ I pulled the curtain aside to see Hanno on his knees fellating Lucius Curio.

“Hanno,” I said, the word half-choked on the
revulsion that filled my head and pushed itself hot and wet out my eyes. “Come here.”

“Oh, really,” Curio tsked. “Must you?”

“Master!” Hanno flew to me. I caressed his hair, adjusted his head band and told him to return to Eirene’s quarters. I would see him first thing in the morning. Taking two long strides to stand directly before my assistant, I slapped him hard. His head snapped sideways.

“How dare you?!”
Curio cried, incensed.

With the back of my hand, I slapped his other cheek
. He recovered, keeping his hands at his sides, but his cheeks flamed from far more than the sting of my hand. “I see,” he said. “I did not realize your claim was exclusive.”

I hit him again, struggling to keep
from making a fist.

“You cannot blame
me, now that you have somewhere else to spill your seed…”

The backhand was harder this time. Much harder. Curio almost lost his balance. W
hen he righted himself, he held the back of his own hand against the corner of his bleeding lip. He said, his voice low, “You will pay for this, slave.”

A guard appeared in the doorway, surrounded by other sleepers roused by the noise.

“Leave us. Pull the drapes,” I commanded.

They
withdrew, but I knew they would be listening intently just down the hallway. I reached behind me, and as I pulled the blade from the hidden sheathe in my tunic, I whispered, “The fault is mine, Lucius Curio.”

“Are you mad?
” he said indignantly. “You cannot carry a weapon!”

“
Familia
will never be to you what it means to us.”

I put my left hand on his chest and pushed him back upon his
sleeping couch, then fell upon him, my thighs straddling his chest. His head was bent up against the wall. I put the blade against his neck and my mouth close by his ear.

“Touch the boy again,” I whispered, “and
you will watch the last of your life’s blood wash these tiles.”

“You have no idea what is happening here, do you?
Get off me. Do you think your years of service have earned you a dram of
anything
more than you had the day you came to this house? You are a fool, no better than that deformity I use to pleasure myself. Now leave me. I have a busy day tomorrow.”