“Are they all as polite as you in Gaul?” Cicero asked.
“I don’t know; it’s a big place. Does polite mean honest? Then I’m more polite than most.”
Crassus said, “We could use a man like this on the floor of the senate. Think how he’d lessen the hours of squabbling.”
“Think,” Cicero answered, “how he’d lessen the number of senators.”
“Your senate is a place for speeches, not for Culhwch. Your son and I have struck a good bargain: you keep your robes and talk and tell us who to kill and we will take our spears and our horses and ride out with your soldiers and kill your enemies by your side. We will take a few heads, you will give us a little gold, then everyone is smiling.”
“An excellent bargain,” dominus said. “Tell us then, my lord, how you came to ally yourself with my son.”
“I am a prince of the Petrocorii. We work the iron mines; nobody in the land you call Gaul makes better weapons. My father was chief of Corterate; still is unless someone’s jabbed a spear through his black heart. Corterate is smaller than Vesunna, just to the east along the river. In Vesunna, the people are richer, the women are prettier and the beds are softer. Especially the bed of the daughter of the headman, a dung heap of a bastard who, it must be known, is a very good friend of my father. Hah! Everyone had it in for me, but I did them a favor. There’s no comparing my seed to the jellyfish she calls ‘husband;’ now they’ll have a strong son who’ll make them proud. Unless they tossed him to the dogs when he was born.” Culhwch took a swig of wine. He added thoughtfully, “That’s what I’d have done.”
“You took another man’s wife,” Cicero said, “in his own house, an ally of your father, and got her with child?”
“Are you deaf, or have you not been listening?” Culhwch asked. He wagged a nail bitten forefinger in Cicero’s face. “That would not be polite.” Cicero flushed, searching for those in the crowd of listeners guilty of laughing, but Culhwch had already moved on. “Your son, lord,” he said, addressing Crassus, “had just vanquished the peoples of Armorica and had fixed his eye on Aquitania. I made parlay with this young Roman commander who had blood in his eyes. When he told me he would first make war on the Sotiates, copper-mining scum if you’ve never met one, and after that pursue the gold miners of the Tarbelli, that was all I needed to hear. I swore fealty and offered those few cavalry and charioteers of my father’s who were loyal to me and looking for a little excitement. Couldn’t go home after all that, so here I am.”
“A thousand such warriors is no small offering,” Crassus said.
“Why make war on your own people?” One could see that Cicero was reluctant to pose another question, but could not help himself.
“First, they are not my people. My people came down from the great island to the north you call Britannia. The southerners of Aquitania, well, who cares where they came from? Second, iron is good, gold is better.”
“I am deeply humbled and gratified by your loyalty to my son.”
“He is a good fighter and a better leader of men.” A scream, too familiar to my ears, came from somewhere near the front entrance, but Culhwch continued as if this was a prosaic celebratory noise. I fought the urge to leave my post, but Crassus gave me no signal. “Impetuous, but he is young,” the Celt said as others moved off toward the disturbance. “You have raised him well. Would that I had a son like him.”
“You are most gracious,” said Crassus. “Let us see what this fuss is about, shall we?”
We came upon a semicircle of guests framing a scene of frozen confusion. Let me see if I can describe it accurately for you. Hanno (it was his ear-piercing squeal we had all heard) was standing against the far wall to the left of the inventory of guests’ footwear. I had assigned him the simple task of keeping the outdoor shoes organized and fetching those required by departing guests. Remarkably, he could place every pair with its owner’s feet without a single instruction from the reveler. When guests were ready to depart, Hanno unerringly and instantaneously found the correct pairs of shoes amid the wall he had built upon everyone’s arrival.
Now he was crying. Kneeling before him was Brenus, Culhwch’s son, his arms devoutly wrapped about the poor boy’s knees, his head lowered in apparent prayer. Almost blotting this pitifully unique sight from view was Taog, his back to his master, brandishing with one hand a seven-foot wrought iron floor lamp, its spilled oil leaving a sputtering arc of dying flames on the tiles. Cradled under Taog’s other arm was the top of a struggling Roman head. But before we get to Betto (whose head it was), I should note that arrayed against the Celtic giant were Malchus, his lethal mistress, Camilla, naked and gleaming in the lamp light, plus several armed guards and guests. Swords and daggers made small, ominous circles in the air, vipers ready to strike. In moments, blood and oil would mingle on the floor.
“Lay down your weapons, gentlemen.” Crassus strode between the antagonists and lowered his arms. Every exposed blade followed the gesture as if attached to his hands by invisible strings. The voice of Marcus Crassus turned adversaries into contrite children. Even Taog righted the lamp, humbled by the courage of the master of the house, unarmed and vulnerable, walking to a place easily within his grasp. Thankfully, at that moment, Brenus finished his prayer and released his hold on Hanno’s legs.
“Master!” the boy cried, running into my arms. “Sorry. That man frightened me. I’m really sorry. His face is ugly.” Brenus had allowed Livia to treat his broken nose, but she could do little more than clean him up and offer him a draught of poppy-laced wine, which he refused. He would heal over time, but until then, the unnatural colors and shapes of his face would startle anyone not prepared for the sight, especially a boy like Hanno. “And he touched me. I didn’t want him to, but he did. So I screamed. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
While I comforted the boy, Brenus quickly rose to his feet. “He is a child of Lugos. He made the sign and I was bound to pay homage.”
“Sir,” Crassus said, looking up at Taog. “I must ask you to release that man.”
Before he could comply, Culhwch came up behind dominus and shouted, “You pustule on a whore’s teat! You’ve shamed us all!”
“Hold, Culhwch,” Crassus said. “You are not shamed. I sense nothing but a misunderstanding here.”
The Celtic warrior shouldered past dominus and raised his hand to strike his son. Taog made a low noise deep in his throat and took a step toward Culhwch, relaxing his grip on Betto’s head.
“I will not have this,” Crassus said. “You are a guest in my home.”
Culhwch grinned and a blade appeared, far too close to Crassus' person for the comfort of any Roman present. Or me. As our lord held up his hand to stop the Romans trembling to intercede, I stepped between the Celt and my master. Culhwch flipped the knife to his left hand and grabbed me by the neck, pressing his spoon of a thumb against my throat. After that, I don’t think he paid me any attention at all. “How will you fare, Brenus,” he said, “when your heartwall has crumbled and you’ve nothing to hide behind?” Taog gave the knife no heed, but he clenched his fists, his knuckles making sounds like walnuts cracking. I could not help but think of Lucius Curio. There he was at the edge of my vision, peeking out from behind a statue of Mercury.
Where was Publius?
“Whew! I was about to suffocate in there,” Flavius Betto said theatrically, drawing everyone’s attention. Having wriggled free of Taog’s head lock, he had dusted himself off and was sauntering up to our little group as if we were all friends at the local tavern. “And the smell!” He came straight up beside Culhwch and clapped him on the back.
The Celt leader let out a little laugh. “He does stink, doesn’t he.”
“Let’s be fair,” Betto said, “compared to us, you and yours smell like you all rode up from Hades on your chariots. Nothing else like it above ground, I’ll wager. Then again, I hear you fight like daemons from the underworld, so I’d say it’s more than a fair trade.”
“I like this
little Roman,” Culhwch said, sheathing his knife.
“Call me Betto. You know, sir, you’re choking my friend here.”
“Hah! I was just holding him out of the way. I would not let any harm come to my lord Crassus' man, or any Roman, unless ordered.” He let me go and shook my shoulder with affection. I think. Then he turned to dominus. “If you say there is no shame, I must believe you. Still, my people and I have disrupted your celebration. We will go.” The tension was leeching rapidly from the area.
“There’s no need for that,” Crassus said, but he was using his oratorical voice.
Betto, sensing his work was not quite yet done, turned to Taog and poked him several times in the stomach. “You understand, dominus,” he said, “I refrained from committing violence upon this fellow, it being a party and all. You behave yourself from now on, you hear? This is the house of Crassus; you remember that next time.” The grey-eyed giant looked down at Betto. He knew exactly what the little soldier had done, and laughed with closed lips, a sound like a boulder thrown down a flight of stairs.
Crassus smiled. “I thank you for your forbearance, Flavius. Come to my office tomorrow morning, when you’re not on duty.”
“Yes, dominus.” When Betto left our lord’s tablinum the following day, he would find himself a thousand sesterces richer.
“Hah! A country of comedians,” Culhwch said, shaking his head. “How we ever let you beat us.” His smile disappeared when he looked at Brenus, still standing near the wall that displayed the glowing family death masks. Culhwch pointed a finger at his son and said, “I’ve had enough of you for one night.” He paid his respects to Crassus, ignored Tertulla and made for the door. Hanno pushed away from me and hobbled to the wall of shoes. In no time Culhwch was putting on his boots, which frankly would not have been that difficult to find, even with eyes shut.
“Make the sign, boy.” Hanno formed two interlocking circles with his four remaining fingers.
“Hmph. So it’s true.” The Celt left without another word.
“He cannot bear the thought,” Brenus explained, “that my heart lies with the priesthood, not with soldiering.” The crowd was leaking away like air from a bladder, drawn to other entertainments, of which Crassus had provided many, though none as thrilling as the prospect of unscheduled violence.
“Are you a Druid then?” I asked, so intrigued that I had spoken without permission.
“An initiate, yes,” he said, delicately dabbing with a fringed orarium at the yellow and purple lump that was his nose. “I saw the child standing with his four fingers thus, making interlinking circles; this is the sign of Lugos. I knew that we had been guided to this place; that our destiny did truly lie with your son, our friend and commander. I meant no harm to the boy.”
Lady Tertulla walked briskly up to us, her blue eyes flashing—never a good sign. Dominus followed close behind. “Then why,” she said tersely, “did you not release Hannibal the moment he screamed?”
“I could not, lady. Not until my prayer was said. Your Hannibal is a Godsend, a human talisman of protection and strength.”
“What kind of god,” domina said with disgust, “allows his priests to frighten a harmless child?”
Curio insinuated himself into our group. “Forgive me, domini. Titus Lucretius is about to begin his recital in the main atrium.”
“In a moment,” lady Tertulla said. “We will arrive shortly. Have him wait.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong?” Hanno whispered, back in the dubious safety of my protection.
“You are a Godsend,” Brenus said, moving closer until domina held up a wary hand. “We revere you and will serve you if you let us.”
Hearing this, Hanno smiled his smile and the entrance hall grew bright.
The small crowd of guards and armed guests, still mistrustful while two Celts remained, stayed within earshot. Betto turned to Malchus, his friend visibly relieved as he sheathed Camilla. “Nice work,” Malchus said.
Betto muttered, “I had to inhale the breath of Cerberus so we could discover Hannibal’s a good luck charm?”
“Be thankful,” Malchus said, eyeing Taog warily, “that the giant left you with a nose, and your head.”
“I have heard of these Celtic gods and their Druid priests,” Crassus was saying. “They build wicker prisons in the shape of giant men, twenty feet tall. When they are victorious in battle, they crowd their captives within and set the entire structure alight.”
“Lugos must receive our gratitude, or we will fall from his favor. We serve our god. When you parade your tortured, captured kings, slaughter your enemies and take them for slaves, what god do you glorify?”
“You disgust me,” Tertulla said. “Marcus, I do no want these people in our home.”
“I swear, no harm shall come to the boy from us,” Brenus said. “If you allow it, I will share my heartwall to insure his protection.”
“We shall see,” Crassus said. “For now, I think it best that you retire.”
One of the young men who stood beside Malchus ready to defend the city’s patriarch was a brooding, beardless, light-haired man of thirty. In the days to come, I would see his knit brows often, furrowed as frequently in concentration as in consternation, and would learn to respect his counsel. His name was Gaius Cassius Longinus. Julius Caesar would come to know him as well.
Chapter XV
55 BCE Spring, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives
I was not present for my lord’s investiture as consul, nor could I have been. Should any person not a senator, least of all a slave, enter the curia while in session, civic deliberations must by law cease immediately. The moment he took his office and sat in one of the senate’s two curule chairs (Pompeius was yet abroad, returning from his mission to secure new and more reliable grain contracts), dominus proceeded openly with his plans to leave both his newly won post and the city as soon as preparations could be completed. He was beset by friends and adversaries, optimates and populares, calling for him to reconsider this precipitous, not to mention illegal plan. He ignored them all.
Publius was brought into his counsel, but was never told the true reason for his father’s obsession. Crassus was rightly afraid that if he knew, he could not be restrained from assassinating Caesar himself. But that was not dominus’ plan. All Publius knew was that his father was intent on making war for the glory of Rome. The young legate’s eyes glittered at the prospect as he said, “Gaul is cold and wet, and I have no desire to suffer more of the same in Briton. Father, enough of stories. Let me demonstrate in Parthia with lance and sword the qualities of which your son is made.”
In his office, Crassus paused before speaking, emotion clogging his throat. “No father could be more proud than I. But is such a thing possible? Caesar will never release you.”
“Release? I am practically my own man in Gaul. Caesar is but half its conqueror, his letters to the senate notwithstanding. I tell you truly, and I make no boast, I have done more with one legion than he has with six. Did he guide my hand while I conquered all Armorica? Where was he during my conquest of Aquitania? The war against Ariovistus, King of Germania, would have gone quite differently for our legions had not my cavalry charge broke the enemy lines and dispersed them in disarray. 120,000 heathens learned their final lesson that day. What a fine sight to see what was left of their ranks fleeing back across the Rhine, their tails tucked beneath their hairy behinds. Now don’t misunderstand me, Father,” Publius said, “Caesar is a decent general. For an old man.”
“Do not discount the wisdom of age and experience, my young hero.”
“Father, for age, I shall rely on you, but for experience, you must admit no commander twice my age has more.”
“I certainly can think of none with more self-confidence. Well then, we shall make a fine pair of generals, old and young. But how will you get away? I must sail before the end of the year. Gabinius, the man
I am replacing in Syria, would like nothing better than to lay claim to Parthia; we must make haste.”
“Why worry?” Publius said. “If he is but a governor and no king, let him try. According to Caesar, Parthia will still be ours for the taking when your Gabinius fails.”
“I’d rather not give him the opportunity, despite Caesar’s confidence in the Sibyl. You and I are true kings—rulers of our own destinies. We cannot help but succeed. But you have not answered my question.”
“If you let your dog run without a leash, you cannot blame the dog if it runs away.”
Crassus swept a grey lock from his forehead. “I don’t follow.”
I said, “You strike me, young master, as more wolf than cur.”
The old Publius would have winked at me. The new Publius glanced at me sideways, a rebuke for interrupting. He continued to his father, “I am practically autonomous in Gaul. My men follow me, not Caesar. I will return to Gaul and make my peace with him; honor demands it. But as I pass through the north, I will tarry. There are thousands of Pompeius’ men breaking their backs in rocky fields, as suited to farming as a whore is to marriage. One whisper in their ears of a march to glory and you will hear the sound of scythes dropping and sword belts tightening from Vercellae to Ravenna. By summer’s end you’ll have enough men marshaled on the Campus Martius to conquer a dozen Parthias.”
“One is all that I require.”
“Master! Father Jupiter! Look at me!” Hanno shouted, galloping past the entrance to Crassus' tablinum on the shoulders of the Celtic giant, Taog.
“Hannibal! Taog!” I snapped. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s all right,” Crassus said. “Your mistress is visiting lady Cornelia today.”
“Play outside, then. Where’s Brenus?”
“In the workshop,” Taog said, making a final turn around the impluvium before ducking carefully through the atrium doorway.
A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven Page 16
