“Of course I am changed, tutor,” Publius continued, ignoring Crassus. “Who do you think it was who set me on this path? Are you not proud of your handiwork? I am a Roman.” He held the sword out in front of him, balanced on his open palms. “This is who I am.”
“I did not teach you the sword. I taught you philosophy, mathematics, honor, integrity. Have you forgotten those?” I said, my voice rising.
Publius had the great sword half-sheathed, but stopped. He turned his head to me. “Have you, tutor, forgotten your place?”
“So you are reconciled, then, to a few more less strenuous months on the west bank of the Euphrates?” Crassus asked of his son, as if none of this altercation was in progress.
Publius shoved the sword home and stood. “I have heard, now that we speak of it, that the doors to the temple are fifteen high and covered in hammered gold. The statue of the goddess is molded of solid gold and studded with precious stones.”
“My lord, we do not need the money,” I pleaded.
“Do not forget the pilgrims,” dominus said, “who trek hundreds of miles to lay an unending stream of rare artifacts and offerings at her feet.”
“I’m beginning to like this plan,” said Publius, clearly enjoying my distress.
“It is settled. We will go to Hierapolis. I say we do need the funds, and the army needs the discipline of the engagement,” Crassus said.
“We do not need the money,” I insisted, “and will prove it, if you let me. Are you speaking, dominus, of the discipline the men displayed at Zenodotium,” I said.
“Mind your tongue,” Publius snapped.
My tongue, it seemed, had a mind of its own. “Millions of our subjects worship Atargatis,” I protested, “millions more again whom Rome would conquer. She is the Great Mother, goddess of fertility, creativity and destruction. The moon is her sign, as powerful as the sun. Do this, and plant a forest’s worth of rebellious seeds.”
“Let them grow,” said Crassus. “Winning this war is everything. All else is vapor.”
“Why do you bother, Father. We have been too kind to this one for too long. Remember what you once told me: after forty, they become intractable. Alexander, your time is past.”
Crassus said, “Now, I won’t have talk like that, Publius. Alexander understands. He knows we don’t begrudge these children their bedtime stories. Let Atargatis rule the night, so long as the people know that Rome rules the day.”
Though I was reeling from what this newly minted stranger had just spat at me, I said what needed to be said. I had never done otherwise. “Dominus, Syria is your province to govern with a just and even hand. Have you forgotten the reception Gabinius received at the hippodrome the day before he departed Antioch? They will hate you for this, my lord. Is this the legacy you seek, to be reviled, like Pompeius on the day of the elephants?”
Publius was before me in an instant. As his hand came across my face, he spoke in measured, disciplinary tones. “Know your place.”
“That’s enough,” the elder Crassus said. “Alexander and I have played this game for over thirty years. You have been away at war. He and I like to wage our own every now and again, don’t we, Alexander?”
“May I have permission to speak without being struck?” I asked.
Crassus nodded, but Publius said, “That depends on what comes out of your mouth.”
I rubbed my burning cheek. “My lord, what will men say when they hear the name of Marcus Licinius Crassus a hundred years hence, a thousand?”
Publius looked at his father, and dominus considered, then spoke. “Alexander, I do not care, for I shall not be there to hear it. You know my purpose. I am steadfast in it.”
“Good for you, Father. Now tell us,” Publius said, not without a little malice, directed straight at me, “the third part of this exercise.”
“Perhaps it is better if I do not hear it,” I said. “I beg permission to withdraw.” In my mind’s eye, I heard the arrhythmic echo of Sulla’s axes thunking into Plato’s sacred olive groves for his siege engines, the buzz of the stone balls from his catapults and the screams of the vanquished as the bloodletting began. It was the year I had become a slave, and the year Athens was raped. The Romans had violated the sanctuaries at Delphi, Olympia and Epidaurus. On the day I was taken they had tramped into the Agora and seized statues, paintings and dedicatory shields that had graced the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios.
It is all happening again, and I ride with the looters.
“You must hear it,” said Crassus, “for I want to give this gift to you. I know how you value the study of foreign cultures, anthropology, sociology and, you know, things of that nature.” Who is this man now talking? Who is it who listened? “You must put the rest of it out of your mind, Alexander. I command it. I want you at my side when we step inside a place where only one other Roman has ever set foot. We will enter their Holy of Holies, but unlike politic Pompeius Magnus, we cannot afford to be merely sightseers.”
Publius shrugged without understanding, but I felt my knees begin to buckle. “Tell me you will not do this thing,” I said, water rising to weigh upon my lower eyelids.
“I tell you we will. After Hierapolis, we continue south into Judea, and Jerusalem.”
Chapter XXXIV
54 BCE — Fall, Antioch
Year of the consulship of
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher
I don’t remember leaving, or walking the short distance to my rooms, or even writing the first draft of the letter. I must have moved with ghostly quiet, for thank Somnus, both Livia and Hanno were still sleeping soundly when the rising sun slipped a sliver of red through the drapes and across the table where my head lay on ink-stained hands. I rose stiffly, gingerly lifted the final copy from the table and crept from the room.
The gallery was chilly at this hour. The citrons in the courtyard watched my treason in bitter stillness as I unlocked the letter box, rolled my forgery, sealed it, waited for the wax to dry, then broke the seal and swept the debris into a pouch. After tucking the letter I had written in Tertulla’s hand back amongst the rest of the correspondence, I closed and locked the box. What a stroke of luck, you might say, not only that my lord and lady’s seals were identical, but that that they used the exact same color of wax. You may thank me for this romantic notion. In retrospect, my fortunes would have fared far better had a more random selection of utensils forced me to think twice about my pernicious meddling.
While I shivered at my task, shaking only a little from the cold itself, I could not stop thinking about the changes that had come over both my masters. War had hardened Publius, as it must. He and I were lovesick when last we met, between the distractions of lady Cornelia and Livia, neither one of us could have been the keenest judges in contests of discerning character. His cruelty and arrogance were hidden from me, and to be honest, I was blinded by and eternally grateful for his bravery, or to be more precise, his sense of timing.
Throughout the previous evening’s nightmare conversation, dominus appeared and disappeared, confident and commanding one moment, lost and uncertain the next. The wise Crassus would never dream of sacking the temples of Hierapolis or Jerusalem. He had never committed an act so foolhardy in all his long career. It was as if some daemon had possessed him, and I knew that monster’s name. I had half a mind to steal the portrait of Caesar he wore around his neck and crush it underfoot. His grey eyes went in and out of focus, sharp, then dim. I believe that when that faraway look came upon him, his thoughts were of Tertulla. But you who read this understand it served my purpose to think so.