The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,16

all that called you friend will be hunted down and put to the sword. When you are slain, I will take your severed head and send a message with it, more convincing than any inked on parchment. I shall catapult it over the walls of Praeneste so that the son of Marius will know his battle for Rome is over. For him, like you, all is lost.”

There came a thud as the condemned must have been forced to his knees. Sulla said in a solemn voice, “He is yours, Marcus.”

I had seen these executions before and cringed at the thought of what was going on above me. Crassus must have stood behind his victim, placed his sword point at the base of the neck and with both hands thrust straight down. I heard nothing, but the deed must have been done.

Because then they took the head.

Chapter V

82 - 81 BCE - Winter, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Gaius Marius the Younger and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo

There was a girl, maybe ten or eleven. Perhaps twelve; I’ve never been good with children. They puzzle me. She stood by wherever it was I lay and stared at me with an intensity that, had I the strength, would have made me look away. Green eyes the color of a hummingbird’s back. I tried to smile at her, but I don’t think my face cooperated. She began to whistle, backing away into the middle of the room and dancing to the rhythm she set. Her long hair, as red and gold as a Piraeus sunrise, spun about her face as she twirled. It made me dizzy to watch her, but I was transfixed. The back of my head throbbed like a second heart. Before I lost consciousness again, a thought lurched past, irrelevant and nonsensical: her tresses are silken and she has no freckles. Unusual for a redhead.

***

My legs were brittle fire. If I moved, they would crack and break apart like charred paper. Someone replaced the cloth on my forehead with one dampened by cool water and aromatic oils. Ecstasy. The blanket soaked with my sweat was pulled away and someone gasped. “Livia, get out,” a woman commanded. Footsteps retreated and next I felt the pressure of gently probing fingers. I groaned. My heart had abandoned my chest altogether. Now it fell to my thigh, thumping against its swollen tightness. If I moved, it would burst free from the inside.

A man’s voice: “Will he live?”

The woman answered, “If the fever breaks. I must drain the wounds.” She began her work in earnest. There came a most disagreeable scream, after which I spun out of consciousness.

***

Two weeks later, I was summoned. Sabina, the Greek healer responsible for my recovery, guided me from the servants’ wing through the house. But for her, I would have perished in the delirium of infection that spread from my thigh until it ran up against the unyielding ministrations of my savior. As clarity returned, I found myself in the middle of a perplexing dilemma. A captive quickly learns that the odds of survival are greatly improved by not drawing attention to oneself. Yet here I was, propped up on pillows (rough-woven homespun stuffed with seed hulls, but pillows nonetheless), spoon-fed hot broth by either the healer or her daughter, and given a gift withheld for so long I could scarcely count the days since I had last received it: comfort. Never in all my life had I craved someone’s attention as much as I did this spare, hard woman. Her face, once beautiful, had been weathered down to handsome. She was tall but never seemed to stand to her full height, as if her trials were a constant weight against which she strove. She was not quite old enough to be my mother, but each moment spent in her company brought painfully sweet reminders of family, and home.

A non-ambulatory servant will test the patience of the most understanding Roman, so I drank Sabina’s potions, hobbled about as long and as often as I could endure it, and did everything I could to assist in my own convalescence. On these brief walks down dark hallways, my arm gripping her narrow shoulder, her strength supplying most of what kept us vertical, my best conversational skills were not enough to draw Sabina out. In two weeks I learned little more than that she was from Attica and had been married. Her husband had been killed almost a year ago, I know not how. Like