The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,77
a very poor life expectancy.
I had not so much fallen out of love with Livia as been pushed. Was there no way I could scale the heights back in to the refuge of her affection?
Chapter XXIII
70 BCE - Fall, Baiae
Year of the consulship of
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus
Tertulla lay on her side on a couch by the warm water pool, her towel haphazardly draped about her waist. “Someone seems to have emptied our cups, the curs.”
“Alexander,” Crassus said, “would you please summon Tranio to see if there is any more Caecubum?”
“I know where it is, domini,” Livia volunteered. “Alexander, I will go. Keep your place - remain by dominus.” A honey bee usually dies when once it stings. Were Livia a member of the order Hymenoptera, she would be more wasp than bee. Her words could prick over and over again with impunity. If memory serves, it is only the female of the species capable and willing to deliver these little, vexing attacks.
Livia. In the years since I had robbed her of her mother, the whistling, impudent sprite had lost none of the qualities that had drawn me to her when she was little more than a child, although the first of these had diminished to accommodate a burgeoning of the second. Six more years had aroused and affirmed what everyone in the familia already knew, including the girl herself. What was impish and playful at seventeen had matured into stunning and willful at twenty-three.
Some well-worn turns of phrase, worked smooth by years of usage may grow stale and out of favor. Yet the kernel of their truth may yet be fresh; indeed their hoary longevity is proof of their accuracy even though the modern wordsmiths may pass them by as unfashionable. Here is one such as this: the effect Livia had on me, steadfast and unchanging since the day I realized I was in love with her: the sight of her took my breath away. This in spite of my own damnable contribution to her loveliness: a layer of sadness deep in her eyes, dead leaves in a forest pool. But she was nothing if not pragmatic. Her mother was gone, she was a slave in the house of Crassus, and since she could not avoid her fate, even as I had done years ago, she, too, determined to embrace it.
***
Imagine you are young and in love. Something, anything, it does not matter what, destroys that affection. You weep, you plead, you separate, you never see each other again, you suffer, you heal, you go on. But suppose through circumstance you are forced to see each other almost every day. You work together, share meals together and to fulfill your duties, must often communicate together. Can you picture a more exquisite torture? Try it another way. Think of what you want most in life. Hold it in your mind’s eye. Place it close by, but just out of reach. Is the image there before you? Now, deny yourself the chance of ever having it.
For six years I had tried to learn to see Livia with dispassionate eyes. Hopeless. I don’t think she hated me; but those first looks of enchantment had clouded over with cataracts of repudiation. I lived in a purgatory of my own making.
Tertulla had convinced Crassus, in order to restore the tranquility of the house, he must send Ludovicus to another posting. She suggested that Livia and I also be parted, but he would not hear of it. There was no possibility that I would be sent away, this Tertulla understood. As for Livia, while dominus was a faithful and loving husband, he had an appreciation for beauty in all its forms. Livia, too, must remain within his sight.
I made inquiries to the mine several times a year, and without advising either Crassus or Livia, sent a monthly bribe from my own accounts to the mine manager. As far as I knew Sabina was alive and spared the most brutal travails of that hideous place. But I had no way to know for certain how she fared.
I did not revile myself for the actions that had destroyed the only love that had ever found me, but neither did I give myself any peace about it. Sabina had murdered Tessa, of that there was no doubt. But if I had listened more carefully, been a better friend, recognized the signs of her jealousy, I might have been able to influence that awful outcome.