The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,42

house of an apostate. The big Spaniard became lethargic, despondent, and the house sank into dark waters; we moved sluggishly, unable to talk to one another, afraid to meet the eye of either Pío or our master. Everyone knew that Crassus would not let the matter rest; his reputation had been sullied. Nestor, property of M. Licinius Crassus, by running away had in effect, stolen himself from his master. Boaz’s men were searching throughout the city, and they knew where and how to look: each carried an image of the fugitive and a purse heavy enough to animate the most reluctant tongue. The law of furtum hastened the inevitable: to conceal a runaway was the same as theft, and theft could result in flogging or worse: consignment to the aggrieved with freedom forfeit.

Three days after Nestor’s disappearance, young Marcus and I were sitting on the rim of the peristyle’s fountain, building papyrus boats to see whose design would stay afloat the longest. A shadow came across the sun and I looked up, shading my eyes to see Pío looming over me. His huge hands cradled a bunch of flowers, which I assumed he was going to arrange at the shrine of the house gods in the atrium. Yet his demeanor struck me more like a mourner making a gravesite offering. He stood there, immobile yet tense, a bear sniffing out prey. His eyes rested on me like dead coals, staring down at me; no, not at me, through me. Spray from the fountain blew our way and Marcus laughed. I almost hushed him, as if to warn him of imminent danger. Pío glanced his way, then turned and walked away, allowing me to exhale.

Marcus tugged at my tunic; my eyes were drawn back to the boy, but not my attention. Why would Nestor want me dead? I could understand why Pío might help him flee, but was that where his involvement ended? Nestor did not seem the type to cultivate connections of such a base nature. The house was in a state of dreadful disruption, and at its vortex the fact that I was still alive. I did not understand, nor could I connect the logical points. Unhappily, I was about to be tutored, for it was only a moment or two before the sun was eclipsed a second time. Pío was still holding the flowers, but their stems looked crushed in his unwitting stranglehold. His stare was now direct and purposeful.

“Why you make change? You hate us? You make jealous?” I started to protest, but there was no room here for dialog. “You are like carpenter ...” Pío dropped to a knee-cracking squat and I flinched, but his attention was on the boy, not me. “Marcus, you be good boy and find mother.”

I had a wild impulse to beg the five year-old to stay, and was absurdly relieved when Marcus protested. “Go now,” Pío insisted. He smiled and handed the boy several flowers. The trade was struck and off Marcus ran, leaving a trail of pulled petals.

Pío remained squatting. He turned to me, the look of affection for Crassus’ son transformed. “I see you, I think of carpenter who fuck my mother,” he said. “You not fuck, but you come to my house. You do not belong here. Like him. After he come to my house, all bad.” The animation left his face as he rose; he lumbered off toward the lararium to make his offering. Those flowers would be dead come morning.

It suddenly occurred to me that my consternation, which was palpable, was not rooted in fear, though by any standard it should have been. What struck me like a blow from a fist as I sat swirling my fingers in the fountain’s waters, the sun polishing cabochons from each drop of spray, what pierced me like one of Sulla’s arrows was the realization of the extent to which I had become accustomed to living in the house of Marcus Crassus. Though I would not have thought it possible, there were good people here. The days were not onerous and the nights, though lonely, were at least peaceful. I was finding my place, and the last thing I wanted was change. To what god could I pray to stop the sun and send it spinning backwards? Let Nestor be surly and Pío romantic, let knives not fly and halcyon days return. Had I faith, I would bend my knee to Kronos, god of time, a barbarous Titan who