Other Alexander, The (15 page)

Hero.

Chapter XX

76 BCE   -   Summer, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Gnaeus Octavius and Gaius Scribonius Curio

We met by Apollo in the lull between midday meal and supper. Dark clouds churned overhead; distant thunder grew nearer. Surrounding us in partial privacy, the poplars danced a tune called by the wind, but they thrashed out of time. We sat at right angles to each other, holding hands, our backs against adjacent corners of the plinth. Apollo would cry soon, tears streaking his marble face.

“We could run away together,” Livia said.

“We will not.”

“I know.”

“How can something sound so logical to the ears, yet make no sense at all to the heart?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“What have I said?”

“Don’t make this into one of your philosophical puzzles.”

“Apologies.”

We sat quietly for a moment listening to the rising wind.

“We should not have met here,” Livia said, wiping her nose with the kerchief in her free hand.

“Why not?” I asked stupidly.

“I will humor you because you are a man,” she said, sniffling loudly. “If you were a woman you would not have to ask. How can this be my favorite refuge when it has become the place of our parting?”

“It need not be so.”

“Mother says you are my first love, and the first is always the hardest.”

“Only if it ends,” I said, squeezing her hand. To my surprise, she withdrew hers.

“If we agree to end it now,” Livia said, “it will hurt less when we part.”

“Your mother is wrong.”

“She said you would say that.” The first fat drop landed with as soft plop on Livia’s knee.

“And how did she tell you to respond?” My tone escaped sharper than I intended.

“She said she would do nothing to keep us apart, that this was a lesson we would have to learn for ourselves.”

“And?”

“And,” she said, rising to straddle my legs and sit in my lap, “I told her I needed no more schooling.” The kiss that followed was sweet as fruit, sweet as honey, sweet as freedom. I took her face in my hands and looked into the depths of her green eyes. “I do love you so.”

We embraced; she kissed the lobe of my ear and said, “I love you more.” A bolt crackled, the storm suddenly upon us. Thunder fell down heavenly stairs to crash above our heads, Zeus’ invitation for the rain to fall in earnest.

“I used to believe I could reason my way out of any predicament,” I said as we ran for the cover of the colonnades. “I was young and naïve. Nevertheless will I think on this day and night. Pray that when freedom calls your name, we will still stand together.”

•••

It was near the end of Sextilis, a few days before the Vulcanalia. For all of us who depend upon the uninterrupted supply of grain to this city of insatiable appetites, and for all of that somewhat smaller group who believe that the intervention or at least the apathy of the gods makes a crumb’s bit of difference on the volume and safety of the harvest, this is a very important holiday indeed. The priests would invoke Vulcan Quietus, pleading with him to ward off wildfires, protect the city’s grain, even lull the mighty vents of his slumbering volcanoes to utter stillness.

Here’s a bit of irony for you. The Vulcanalia is celebrated on the 23
rd
of the hottest month of the year. Every true Roman must honor Vulcan by beginning the day, not in darkness as is usual, but by candlelight. It pleases the god, apparently, to witness the ignition of more unintended fires on his holiday than on any other. He invariably gets his wish. His altar, the Vulcanal, was in the heart of the forum, just above the Comitium where the senate convened. Wise priests, generations long past, moved the services, which included bonfires as well as sacrifice, to the less flammable Campus Martius, the Field of Mars. There, races are held in the Circus Flaminius, and a hot and sweaty time is had by all.

Last but not least, the god of fire, to exacerbate some ancient Olympian rivalry between Neptune and himself, has developed a monumental craving for fish, and it is on this day that it is sated. Once the bonfires are lit and blazing, the priests ceremoniously hurl countless fish into the flames, imploring Vulcan’s fire to spare the fields, the grain, the city, the people. These holy men rely on cheap perch to appease the god. Crassus had recently acquired two vineyards in Campania and a large millet, corn and wheat farm in Venetia near Cremona. Even a cynic such as he dared not tempt the gods where his investments were concerned, so he had had me order a thousand expensive mackerel for
his
sacrifice. “Why take chances?” he asked when I questioned the size and quality of the purchase. All I could think about was the stink, and hope that the wind would carry the proof of the city’s piety somewhere else.

Walking from the master’s quarters back to my office, I passed Sabina coming in from the entrance that led to the servants’ house. She held her favorite bucket and cleaning rags in one hand (yes, she had a favorite bucket), and something clenched in her other fist. She ignored my greeting; in truth I don’t think she noticed me; sweeping quickly by muttering urgently to herself. As she strode away I had the misfortune to hear a single, coherent word:  “barefoot.” I called loudly after her and she turned at last. I asked what was troubling her; she stared at me with hard eyes, her mouth a thin, tight line. She looked as if to speak, then thought better of it and continued on her way. I knew her well enough to let her be; hopefully whatever ate at her would sort itself out.

I saw her a second time that afternoon. Sometimes, when the mistress was in town shopping, I stole Livia away from her work in the baths to accompany me on one of my habitual walks in the western wood. That is the name I had given it, western wood. I have never been one for flights of hyperbole, or for that matter imagination. As we strolled, hand in hand, our words were feathers, light, soft, of little consequence. We worked hard at pretending nothing had changed between us, as if one of us had contracted a mortal carcinoma. Unlike most, we could see the end of our time together, and having just begun our journey, it was not enough, it was not fair. Though it was the last thing we wanted, the knowledge that one of us would go on and one of us would not became our own shared cancer. We tried to ignore it, but it lay beneath everything we did, everything we said. A growing stone between us, always pushing us further apart. For as long as I could, I delayed seeking out the master to beg my plight. I did not want to hear the finality of his answer. Of course Sabina had been right. To his credit, Crassus did not laugh. He was moved, yet unmoved. I would become rich by his side, but that would always be my place. The stone grew much larger that day.

We had taken the longest trail, a circuitous ribbon that skirted the boundaries of the little forest. As we neared the halfway point, both of us saw a flash of color off to our left, deep in the heart of the wood. We left the trail and made our way through the brush. A woman was kneeling before a small smear of blue and purple; it was the pale yellow of her tunic that we had spied. As soon as she heard our approach she spun to her feet and walked swiftly to meet us, but not before dropping what appeared at that distance like a bundle of rags.

“Mother! What are you doing out here?”

Sabina rolled her eyes. “Polishing leaves. What do you think I’m doing?”

“Sarcasm so becomes you,” Livia said. “Isn’t your herb garden by your clinic?”

“You’re right. You’ve caught me with dirty hands. Wait a moment ... by Jove’s thunderbolt, it’s awfully hard to garden without getting your hands dirty.”

“Mother, you’re acting even more peculiar than usual.”

“Actually, Sabina, your hands look lovely, as always,” I said.

“Such a flatterer. That may work with some ....” Sabina looked pointedly at her daughter.

“But why must you work so far from the house?” Livia pressed.

“What do you see in abundance here, daughter, that you find little of by the
domus
?” Sabina asked.

“People?” Livia said.

“Some plants prefer the shade,” I said.

“Is it any wonder the young Alexander is the favorite of the
dominus
?” Sabina said.

“It is no wonder at all,” Livia said, bumping me off balance with brusque affection. “He’ll have the cash to purchase ten slaves before you have bought our freedom.”

“Livia, please. Your mother toils to give you the gift of gifts.”

“He will have money,” Sabina said, “no doubt. We have spoken of this and I have no time to debate it further.”

“Those flowers look lovely,” I said, peering over Sabina shoulder. “May we have a closer look?”

“Not now, Alexander. I have three poultices to make and several balms for the baths. Perhaps another time.”

“Gratitude, Sabina. We will leave you to your work.”

“And best get back to your own,” she said. She waited with her hands on her hips, watching us until we had found the path before she returned to her herbs.

•••

Attendance at the Vulcanalia was voluntary, but who doesn’t love a good bonfire? The immediate family left early to attend services at the Vulcanal, and soon after the house was almost deserted. Tessa, an Ostian, was among the first out of the
domus
. She grabbed a seat on the lead cart – there were twelve lined up outside our gates - which I had arranged to transport the
familia
to the Campus Martius. Vulcan is Ostia’s patron god; no wonder, since the majority of Rome’s imported grain passes through that harbor.

As soon as the family had left, I looked in on my teaching staff (in our expanded school, a building Crassus owned near the foot of the hill, we taught everything from shorthand to mathematics, from carpentry to bricklaying) and sent them all off to the festival for the rest of the day. Then I trudged back up the hill to attempt to clean up my work table; if I were able to get caught up, my appreciation of the subtleties of immolated seafood would have fewer distractions and was sure to be enhanced. As I passed through the gates, I noted that Betto had left, probably dragging Malchus with him, passing their duties off to hapless subordinates. I found Sabina hard at work in her clinic and made a joke about how devotion and holidays were rarely found in the same bed, at least not until later in the evening. She laughed politely at the first part of my jest, but found little humor in the final allusion to sexual congress. These acts built throughout every Roman holiday until late at night the only couples not fornicating were either lying unconscious in their own vomit or buried in their own graves. I supposed it was because she assumed I was talking about Livia and myself. Which I was not. I said I would try to find her later on the Field of Mars and made a hasty exit, as all misunderstood comics should.

Just before sunset, I rubbed my eyes, dropped my
calamus
in its inkwell and decided I had better go and find my master’s banner up on the field. Sabina was still hard at work, but promised to find me. I told her I would send my escort back to fetch her. Down through the forum and up the hill we went, guided by the glow of a hundred bonfires. The entire field had been transformed into a bazaar, each merchant’s stall punctuated by blazing cones of light and heat. People stood in line before each of these infernos, waiting to be blessed by a priest in blue robes, his cowl pulled over his head so that he was almost faceless. He solemnly received their piscatorial offering and flung it into the flames. Something familiar about the holy man nagged at me, but I could not make the connection.

I looked in vain for Livia, which was just as well. The smell of burning fish was hardly enough to dampen the blossoming ardor of the revelers, and I could not risk succumbing to the excitement of the moment in her presence. The best insurance for that policy arrived about an hour behind me:  Sabina.

We rallied by Crassus’ flag, but the only people present from our house were two soldiers standing guard over the almost empty baskets of mackerel. I reached into one, slipped a forefinger up through the jaws of two long-dead, slimy specimens and off we marched to the largest of all the bonfires, which also happened to be the nearest.

The line was formidable. We inched forward, seeming to make little progress. The high priest of the Vulcanalia was moving slowly up and down the line, greeting supplicants and encouraging their patience, although shaking few hands. He walked by us and, seeing the plaque around my neck denoting my house and my station, instantly summoned us to the front of the line. He was also hooded, but his robes were a rich purple trimmed in gold. Again, a memory stirred within me, a recent one at that, but I could not put my finger on it. I had the feeling that much depended upon the connection being made, but it was impossible to concentrate. Quite frustrating. While my attention was thus diverted, the high priest was happily recounting how Senator Crassus had donated a special offering; his holiness had commanded that anyone from the house of Crassus must be moved expeditiously through the line as gratitude for their service to the god. I was about to ask what service that might be when a portion of it bumped into me from behind. A terrified herd of goats and sheep was being driven past us into a corral situated perilously close to the flames. Acolytes were sprinkling thousands of rose petals upon them as they passed, which neither mitigated the noise nor the smell. The priest told us that this being a particularly dry year, these dozens of animals were being herded into the blaze as insurance against any fiery mishaps in the coming year. Sabina and I made our way back through the crowd, all of whom were struggling to get closer to what we were trying to avoid. Moments later, the specially constructed corral was folded and collapsed so that it and everything in it became a crackling, squealing paean to Vulcan Quietus.