The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Alexander

by Andrew Levkoff

  ***

  To M. Junius Brutus

  Celtica, Sextilis

  My dear Brutus, I was gratified to receive your letter. As you know, it has been a difficult year for the army, especially for the 7th and young Publius Crassus, son of our esteemed friend. These heathens do not withdraw to take up winter quarters, but harry us the year round, detaining tribunes and demanding the return of hostages. Insane, audacious and vexing. Young Crassus, however, has acquitted himself so well, I have sent him to subdue Aquitania. Ironic, is it not? As for the boy’s father, you fret unnecessarily. Even if all were made known to him, Crassus must accept the consulship for several reasons. Do not disesteem the counterbalance of his avarice. He will gain a province, his first; he’ll not pass up that rich harvest. Second, the man’s a coward. He would never confront me. Finally, upon reflection, the poor fool will realize that nothing is worth upsetting the lucrative bargain he, Pompeius and I struck at Luca. No, do not fret, Brutus, we have nothing to fear from Crassus. You know what they say about him, don’t you? He’s a brave man, anywhere but in the field. I hope this campaign does not separate us for too long. My best to your mother. Do not neglect your studies in my absence. G. Julius Caesar

  Chapter XXXII

  56 BCE Spring, Via Cassia

  Year of the consulship of

  Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus

  I did not learn of my lord and lady’s reconciliation until after we had made the six day return trip to Rome. I have patched together the narrative of what was said along those 300 miles from the subsequent confessions and confidences of both my lord and lady. I dramatize this lamentable tale to you here, as I expect it would have unfolded.

  ***

  My lord, on horseback, rode behind his lictors. Tertulla sat by herself in the ornate and commodious raeda which was drawn not by the usual two, but by four horses. She had closed all the shutters and not even Livia rode with her. She had been looking forward to the journey home through northern Etruria, especially since it had rained on most of the journey north and she had seen little of the countryside. But now, her body and her spirit were as closed off as her carriage, and her mood raced like the clouds between despair and rage as they wound their way toward Pistoria on the Via Cassia.

  Before they had gone ten miles, Crassus halted the procession, summoned a groom to take his mount and rapped smartly on the carved door of the vehicle. “Tertulla,” he said in a tone just below civil, “I wish to ride with you awhile.” There came the sound of a bolt being pulled back, and the door swung open.

  Crassus entered, flipped his cloak out of the way and sat with his back to the front of the carriage, facing her. Tertulla lowered the hood of her sea-blue paenula and waited, her eyes lowered. He pulled a shutter aside, gave the command to proceed and closed it again. In a moment, the raeda lurched and they were on their way. The two of them sat without speaking in the dim light of the cabin. The constant grinding of the iron rimmed wheels on the flagstones paved over their silence. Tertulla ached to tell him how sorry she was, to explain, to do anything which would make him look at her in the way he had done only yesterday, in the way she feared he would never look at her again. Her heart was pounding with the knowledge that these next few moments might determine how they would spend the rest of their lives, yet she could not speak first. That was her husband’s prerogative, and so she waited.

  At last, Crassus looked up and said, “Do you remember when we first built the villa at Baiae, that mouse in the bedroom?” His voice was sad and distant.

  “Hercules.” Tertulla, said, her voice too timid to be hopeful.

  “You made a pet out of him.”

  “Only because you could never catch him.”

  “I would have done, if you’d let me tell the slaves to do it.”

  “But you were my hero. You were so diligent: devising traps, laying bits of cheese about the room.”

  “At least you allowed the slaves to clean up the mess. And the droppings.”

  “And that time you stayed up, sitting on the bed in your nightshirt, ready to pounce on him with your helmet .... I could not breathe for the laughter.”

  “I did catch him, if you recall. That’s when you named him. Alas, he ate through the box.”

  “And you held a manumission ceremony in absentia!”

  “More for me than the mouse. I gave him his freedom so I would be free of having to chase him. Remember that little bed you made for him from a jewelry box? He never went near it. Thought it was another trap. A smart little rodent – you should have called him Alexander.”

  “Our Greek would have been insulted.”

  He sighed. “Did we ever find out who let the cat in the house?”

  “No. Poor Hercules.” She waited, hoping he would say more.

  “Those were happy times,” Crassus said at last, putting his hand to his forehead. He seemed ready to sink back down into silence.

  “Marcus? Talk to me. Please?”

  Staring at nothing, he asked, “Have the years turned me into such an ogre? Or have Caesar’s laurels charmed you?” He looked into the blue of her eyes. “Do you love him?”

  “Oh gods, Marcus. He raped me!” She reached across the coach to take his hand, but he pulled away.

  Crassus looked up and met her gaze. “It did not look like rape.” His words fell like lead from his mouth. He felt diminished, compacted, separate. He could see truth in her green eyes, but a carapace of convention kept him from touching her.

  “But for the darkness, you would have seen my tears.”

  “Why, then, did you not cry out? Why did you not resist?”

  The carriage bounced over a rough spot and they both grabbed for their handholds. “Do you think after thirty years I would betray you for that preening peacock? Think, Marcus. I let him do what he did for the same reason you did not stop him! How long did you stand at the doorway? Who do you think sacrificed more last night, you or I?”

  “I do not know what to think. I do not know why I did not stop him.”

  “Then please, my love, let me set your mind at ease. You did not interfere because, when our eyes met, you saw my warning and knew that doing nothing was the only path left for us. If I had screamed before you found us, or if you had intervened, everything you’ve worked for these past ten years would have been lost. Honor would have demanded that you divorce me and break with him. Caesar would have become your enemy.”

  “Caesar is my enemy.”

  “But he does not know that, and we must keep that pearl of knowledge very safe, between only the two of us. He must remain an ally for as long as possible. Caesar thinks he was born with imperium. He came to me to force me to convince you to take the consulate. At least that was his convenient justification for his perfidy. I knew he wanted more. He has coveted me for years. You, too, have seen it, but given it no credit. I did not complain because I knew you needed him, just as he needed you. I stayed away as much as I could.” She looked out at the monochrome sky. “I should never have come with you to Luca.”

  “We have both sinned greatly.”

  “We have paid dearly, husband, but if, by my acquiescence and your silence your plans are assured, was it not worth the price? I knew what this day meant to you. So yes, I let him take me - I could retch hearing those words fall from my lips. Caesar has grievously used us both. He knew we would submit to his blackmail. Because think, Marcus, if the alliance fell, your dreams would have been tossed aside like so many soiled bed sheets. The coalition would have dissolved and your march to power and glory would not have made it out of that bedroom. You know that this is true.”

  “I have had more than my share of each. I would trade it all to regain your virtue.”

  “No, I will not accept this. You could be the most powerful man in Rome if you but wished it so. We will avenge ourselves upon Caesar; let us use him as he has used us.”

  Crassus looked up to see the fire in his wife’s eyes. He leaned acr
oss the compartment, grabbed both her hands in his and said, “Swear to me he forced you. Swear on your ancestors, on the heads of our beloved sons.”

  “I so swear,” Tertulla said, tears springing to her eyes. “May Diana strike me down if I lie.”

  “Is it love or folly that makes me yearn to believe you?”

  “Believe me, Marcus. I beg you.”

  Crassus sat back in his seat. “Trust. It is a word whose meaning I shall have to learn anew. The sight of you with him is burned here ...” he struck his forehead with the heel of his hand, “ ... like Nestor’s brand. But it smolders on the inside of my skull. I will never purge the image from my mind.”

  “We have time, Marcus. Time will etch our scars. Juno help me, I love you so much.” Tertulla’s tears fell in drops to her lap.

  “Time may indeed ease our pain. But I will take my own shame with me to my grave.”

  “It is a shame we share, Marcus. We, both of us, allowed this to happen.”

  “Mine is the greater disgrace,” Crassus said, shaking his head. “You let him take you for my sake, so you say, and it may be true. I want to believe you. But I ... I let him ... and did nothing.”

  “I sent you away, Marcus. You had to go, for both our sakes.”

  “If only I had come to bed at a decent hour. But that Brutus, he would not stop talking.”

  “Marcus Brutus?” she asked. “Isn’t he Caesar’s man?”

  “Caesar has a fondness for him. He’s Servilia’s boy; I suspect she is the basis of his affection. Every time I tried to rise, he poured more wine and found some new topic on which he simply had to have my opinion.”

  “He was a part of it,” Tertulla said with conviction. “I will place his name next to Caesar’s own when I write my curses.”

  “You may be right. Come to think of it, the servant who led me to our room took me in the wrong direction. I became quite lost.”

  “He has been planning this since before we left the city. And he knew I could not stop him without great risk to you. He counted on it.”

  “My fortune is nothing without you,” Crassus said. “I would dump it all into the Tiber to undo this monstrousness. You should have screamed, and loudly. And I should have plunged my blade into his neck. Nothing is worth a sacrifice so great. Now look at what he has done to us. Look at what I have done.”

  “I will go to the temple and apply for purification. Then we must seek revenge.”

  “I have thought of nothing else.”

  “You must be very careful. Greed has blinded everyone who attended the conference. I’m sure that brave words were spoken about consensus and the good of the Republic, just as long as every senator's strongbox was sufficiently stuffed full of silver. But nothing was decided at Luca that does not further Caesar’s aims.”

  “That is precisely what I said to him.”

  “Then he was your enemy long before he left the triclinium. He will use you and discard you when he has what he wants.”

  “As he did you.”

  “Yes, Marcus, just as he did me."

  ***

  I had served the familia of Marcus Crassus for almost three decades, indeed had counted myself a part of it for almost as long, but it wasn't until after Luca that I came to realize that those of us who made our home under that roof were like denizens of the deepest seas, living our lives unmindful of the medium that sustained us: the amity in which we lived and worked. The affection between dominus and domina, their rigorous devotion to their children - this contentment was, in great part, what gave me license to accept my own truncated existence.

  Other patricians took and discarded wives the way children trade coins. They married to form alliances, mend fences, latch onto fortunes and gain influence. But then, should a more propitious match become available, the bond would be summarily broken.

  This vile game was never played by Marcus Crassus. Though the custom had fallen out of favor, my lord followed the ancient ways, taking Tertulla into his own home when she was widowed by the death of his older brother. They married, and within a year realized to their delight that they had fallen in love. For three decades thereafter, almost without exception, theirs was a congenial home, a marriage unblemished by strife or division.

  I weep to think of what might have been had we never gone to Luca. Caesar's crime was heinous; I cannot imagine the agony my lord and lady suffered to feed that villain's ambition. He would go unpunished if my lord were not his judge. But at what cost? Crassus was sixty when he led his army to Parthia; he had no material wants and a steadfast love standing right before him. How could they endure a separation of years and the dark nights of worry? They broke asunder a life as perfect as any dream, all for the sake of vengeance. Could I have refrained from retaliation had I been in their place?

  But I am not in their place, am I. A vision of Livia darts before my eyes and quickly flits to weigh upon my heart. How I miss the grating sound of her whistling upon my ears. I remember how I cast her mother into the abyss, shattering the only love I ever had, all because I did not stop to think that I might have had a choice.

  How sad that only a moment before I had just been thinking, I shall never understand these Romans.

  Epilog

  19 BCE - Spring, Siphnos, Greece

  Year of the consulship of

  Quintus Lucretius Vespillo and Gaius Sentius Saturninus

  Reflecting day after day upon the minutiae of one's life is a taxing business. Should you embark upon such an exhaustive audit, I suggest living a shorter life. If that cannot be arranged, be more circumspect in the selection of your memories. For myself, I have become a meticulous chronicler, examining the lives of those close by, and yes, I suppose, my own stumbling journey. The honest witness must be ruthless: every artifact of remembrance must be unearthed, brushed free of dirt and debris to be scrutinized anew, even those recollections pressed deep into the ground, long buried, thankfully, by the balm of years.

  I had not realized the task would be this hard.

  I sit staring at a fresh scroll of parchment, unbloodied as yet by the stabs of my pen. The path lies clear before me, yet I fear to take another step. Contemplation of all that is to come pulls me up short, an old horse come upon a pit of vipers. Loiter no longer, Alexandros; the time has come to tear down the bulwarks that have stood against memory for over thirty years, to pry open these eyes and see again what man was never meant to witness. By the gods, it gives me pause; my rebellious heart shakes in its bony cage. The slope of my narrative rises ever more steeply, and the memories - chaotic, heroic, tragic - grow as difficult to relive as they are to set down. But this is my purpose, and I will see it through.

  ***

  I am eighty-six years old and a free man. Though I have lived two lives, I cannot say whether I was damned in one or blessed in the other. But this I know: choices are the dominion of free men. For almost half my adult life I had been liberated from the necessity of having to make them. Let me tell you, there is nothing so poisonous and seductive about life as a slave as the freedom from having to choose one's own path.

  Marcus Crassus had no such excuse, but like a slave whose decisions are not his own, my master was carefree of the consequences of his actions. He was as close to a god as any man could hope to come. But godhood, it turns out, is a trap: the burdens and responsibilities are just as great as the privilege. Aristotle once said, “Virtue makes the goal right, practical wisdom the things leading to it.” My master was virtuous, but he was not wise. What need has a mortal god of perspective, when a god may suit his morals to his needs? have the wisdom to maintain more than a shred of rational perspective? Men like Crassus see what they want, reach out for it and it is theirs. Consequences to their own wellbeing are weighed, but what of others? What of the multitude who follow him like flowers chasing the sun? What are they to a god?

  Should a small man choose unwisely, though the future repercussions of his error are unknowable, the immediate ripples of causation are mo
st often also tepid and contained. When a man like Crassus chooses his fate with clouded vision, the gods themselves may avert their eyes. My master dragged fifty thousand souls behind him on the rushing tide of his miscalculation. Only a handful of the multitude that followed him into the desert realized that they did so, not for conquest or the glory of Rome, but for one man's love, for the restoration of his honor, and for the administration of his vengeance. Marcus Licinius Crassus would have his war. And Alexandros son of Theodotos would be by his side.

  ###

  Thank you very much for downloading the first installment of my novel! I would love to hear from you - please visit me at melyaket.blogspot.com or at smashwords.com/profile/view/alevkoff. Click here to read a sample from The Bow of Heaven, Book Two: Nemesis. (If the link is not working, please scroll down past the glossary. Thanks.)