I was, to the surprise of all, a natural.
There was no question but that Betto would be my instructor and guide. One day long past, Nestor and Pío, two jealous members of the Crassus household had conspired to relieve me of my household chores, all of them and forever. If not for Betto’s skill with a dagger, not to mention the accuracy of his aim with the remnants of a half-eaten apple, the assassins those two sent to kill me would most assuredly have earned their fee. As for Pío and Nestor, one was dead, the other branded and sent to the mines-as good as dead.
News of my prowess traveled quickly; it was not long before domina and dominus requested a command performance. They brought the entire household with them. I was quite terrified, but my throwing arm knew nothing of nervous jitters or fear of failure. When it was required of me, I became an engine of accuracy. Even the presence of Livia, her white healer’s tunic singular but superfluous in setting her apart from all others, did not cause my aim to falter. Our eyes met once, she smiled briefly, and that wisp of encouragement gave me more strength than Atlas. At the climax of the demonstration, Betto pegged an apple to the training post and from forty feet away I cleaved it in two. With the blade end of my dagger sunk into the wood, as well.
Crassus and Tertulla came up to congratulate me, then my lord pulled me aside. “What a surprise, Alexander. I am fairly well astounded. And it sets me thinking. You, more than any man, even my lictors, are by my side night and day. Upon your return home, prepare a posting which I shall sign and you shall lock away appointing you as one of my personal guards. But tell no one. Keep one of your daggers concealed upon you at all times. I know, I know-the law. Better keep it well-concealed or we’ll both be in trouble.
“Now, you may continue your early morning exercises, that is a noble pursuit, but I require that your aim be refocused on more pragmatic targets. There is much planning and preparation to attend to, and I want you by my side in council.”
As she passed, lady Tertulla let her jeweled hand rest lightly on my own, the fine blue sea silk of her shawl, held about her wrist with a golden lion’s head clasp, draped over my arm like fog settling on rough ground. With the lightest of touches, she drew me down to whisper in my ear, the black curls of her perfumed hair brushing against my cheek and neck. “You are faithful and wise, good Alexandros.” (My birth name!) “Stay close to him. Speak your truths as no other dare. Know that both our minds and hearts are fixed on Parthia; do this for your love of me and the will of your lord. He has need of you now; his need will be greater once Brundisium has faded behind the wake of his ships.” The lips which, by those words, funneled the separate fates of thousands into a single destiny now moved lightly to kiss me on the cheek. In the next moment, she had reached for her lord’s outstretched hand, and was gone.
I looked for Livia before she left, but my lady’s appeal and the ebullient arrival of Betto and Malchus blocked both sight and chance of seeing her. In the end, it was just us three and Hanno left to clean up after the display and put the field back into pristine preparedness. Two hours later, as we were walking back down the hill Malchus said, “What other talents have you been hiding in that skinny frame of yours?”
Betto scratched his head. “Can’t think what more there is to teach you. Never seen anything like it. Did you see the look on the faces of those veterans? Alexander, you’re an artist with a blade.” He slapped me on the back with such force I missed a step. The harder the smack, the greater the affection.
Hanno rushed to my rescue. “Stop it!” he shouted. “Don’t hurt my master’s back. He doesn’t like-”
“…for you to call me master,” I finished for him.
Malchus stopped and squatted on his haunches before Hanno. “He has scars, Hannibal. We all know that. But you mustn’t be ashamed for him; you must be proud. Our friend Alexander is a brave man. Did you know he fought a Roman general to earn those stripes?”
“He did?”
“That’s right, boy,” Betto said. “And anyway, I was just trying to hand him a compliment. You know what a compliment is, don’t you.”
“I know. A compliment is a nice thing to say about a person.”
“That’s right!” Betto said, impressed.
“Malchus gets them all the time. You don’t.”
“Kid, have you ever heard the expression, ‘respect your elders?’”
“No. But once I heard Father Jupiter say to master, ‘respect your betters.’”
Malchus sputtered. “Give it up, Flavius. You’re outmatched. ”
•••
Later, as we acknowledged the guards and passed through the tall gates into the estate and home, the sight of the wealth and privilege that had swallowed me whole was depressing. I thought of domina; did revenge make her blind to the toll their plan would take on her husband? On herself? The rest of us were so far beneath their scheming and their plots, though I stood on the Palatine, a Roman Olympus, to them we served but one purpose, to be the expendable instruments of their designs. The memory of her extravagant scent returned, an insistent rippling of juniper and cypress lapping against my senses, no less seductive than Circe’s perfume was to Odysseus. Unlike the hero, I would never possess any holy herb of moly to defend myself against my lady’s wishes. She might ask, but there was no choice implicit in her perfumed entreaty.
I thought I had carved out a miniscule refuge of freedom within this life, but after years of hiding I could feel the crumbling slide into a deeper darkness, dragging me toward yet another fate I would never have chosen for myself. I looked at Betto and Malchus and poor Hanno, terrified that they, too, would slip and stumble into the abyss, all of us falling helplessly into the darkness. Something about my practice these past weeks, at once troubling but unformed, chose that moment to coalesce into evanescent thought, and recognizing it, I snatched it from the air. “It is not enough,” I said before we parted company at the atrium, each to our assigned tasks. “You say I am an artist, Flavius? If we stop here, then all my works must remain incomplete, for I possess but half my paints and brushes.”
“Has it occurred to you,” said Betto, “that while you were out looking for the next great lecture series, most of the rest of us were happy just to get laid without our pricks falling off.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What in Cerberus’s two tongues are you talking about?”
“I need more skills.”
Betto looked dumbfounded. “Why couldn’t you just say that?” He turned to Malchus. “Why couldn’t he just say that?”
And so it was that Betto and I began our training all over again.
Chapter XI
56 — 55 BCE Winter, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus
It was several weeks after our mission to the balnea Numa before lady Cornelia and Livia could both be released from their social and medical obligations to travel together into town. The streets were still unsafe, and would remain so until after the elections, which Crassus would continue to have postponed until Januarius. I forbid Livia from this outing; she laughed. Why is it I will not be taken seriously? Neither her personal safety nor the threat of rain would make her see sense, and I could not bring myself to have the guards confine her. She argued her position with a whispered kiss against my ear. “You’ll thank me next time you suffer from one of your migraines.” The headache would arrive either way, for the thought of her out and vulnerable in the city was making my temples throb and the cords in my neck turn to iron.