The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,39
Dolabella
Sulla had given up his dictatorship after only a year, having needed only those few months to turn centuries of Roman law inside out. His enemies, allies of Cinna and Marius, were either dead or exiled. He had had himself elected consul along with his friend Metellus, but even that was a sham: he had been dictator in all but name. No one dared dispute his “reforms,” most of which shored up the aristocracy and eviscerated the plebian council, whose power to thwart the senate was neatly castrated. Ironically, it would be under the consulship of Crassus and Pompeius ten years hence that most of Sulla’s legislative upheavals would be overturned.
Eventually, Sulla must have tired of staring at his bloodstained hands, for there was one nineteen year-old member of the populares who none could believe the new master of Rome would ever let slip through his sticky fingers. Recently married to Calpurnia, the daughter of Cinna himself, he was near the top of the proscription lists. This friend of Marius fled to the countryside while his supporters and family petitioned clemency. Sulla was somehow swayed and lifted the sentence of death, but only upon condition that the lad divorce the daughter of his hated enemy. In an act some would call reckless, others insane, the insolent, headstrong rebel refused. The gods clearly had grand plans for this impudent Julius Caesar, for only they could have stayed Sulla’s outstretched hand of clemency from returning to its more accustomed role as wielder of the executioner’s blade. He relented, but warned those that had lobbied for clemency: “in this one Caesar, you will find many a Marius.” History would prove that it was Sulla, not Marius, that Caesar would eventually emulate, and unlike Sulla, Caesar would not tire of the role of dictator.
Rome, then, had settled into an uneasy peace. Not so the house of Crassus. Up from its chthonic bonds beneath the Palatine, Hades was about to break, and it was a damned soul once named Alexandros who had already unlocked the Gates.
***
If Nestor had had any faith at all in his master, it never would have happened. Crassus would not dream of willingly causing harm to the man who had sustained him those many months in hiding while Marius and Cinna hunted for him. But Nestor left our dominus no choice. It was hot on the Kalends of Quintilis. All the doors had been opened, the curtains pulled back and a dozen fan-bearers rented from Boaz. Sabina had taken Livia to town to restock her rapidly dwindling supply of herbs and ointments. I had just finished the afternoon’s last class in Latin grammar. The inside door to the front garden was open; so too the door to the street which I normally left bolted to discourage prying eyes and dampen street noise. Today the need for cross-ventilation bested privacy.
I looked up at the lesson wall, sweating like a Thracian wrestler. The layers of whitewash cried out for a good scraping and a fresh coat of paint, but it was just too damn hot. Happy with my procrastination, I had grabbed my bag of scrolls from the teaching table and taken two steps toward the street-side door in order to shut it when two men stepped through the opening into the schoolroom.
“Salve,” I said. “If you’re looking for the front entrance, it’s the gate just after the next door down the street.” I am pitifully unworldly, for one look at these two and anyone else would have known they would never come a-calling on any establishment other than a brothel, a tavern or a barn.
“Tall and skinny,” one said to the other.
“Must be the one,” said the other. “What’s your name, then?” They stepped closer and I took a step back. It is laughable how good manners so often interfere with my survival. My sluggish instincts had finally flashed a warning, but rather than run from the room screaming for help, I hesitated. What if my apprehension was unfounded? How rude it would be for me to flee. Decorum demanded that I give them the benefit of the doubt.
“Alexandros,” I said, swallowing. “Whom do you seek?”
“What, not Alexander?” The two looked puzzled and stopped their slow advance.
“You a teacher?” asked the second ruffian in a veritable lightening bolt of inspiration. My parents taught me never to lie. I nodded, my knuckles white on the edge of the table.
They looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Close enough.” Each drew an iron dagger