me a look of compassion, but punctuated it with a sigh. She had prepared this evening to take her husband’s mind off his work and my discomfiture was not a high priority. Crassus had already moved on. He raised his wine cup to his lips, then stopped suddenly and exclaimed, “You know, I think you’re right, dove. I think that when I have moved these pieces to their proper place on the board, I will have very likely saved the Republic!”
“You are hopeless, husband,” Tertulla said. “Fortunately for you, I am not. Livia, stronger measures are required. Clean him up a little, but don’t be too thorough. I don’t want all that expensive oil off him just yet.” Tertulla pressed up against him from behind, moving her hands over his chest and stomach. Livia went to a cabinet and retrieved a silver-plated strigil which she methodically but lightly ran down her master’s arms, then legs. She collected the runoff in a small cup attached to the instrument by a golden chain.
“Darling,” Crassus said, “we may need to search for a new seamstress. Livia has a gift.” He stood with legs and arms spread, beginning to respond to the hands that moved upon him.
“Dominus,” I said, my eyes downcast, my voice low, “do not make me do this.”
Everyone stopped and turned to look at me. Crassus appeared as if he were considering acceding to my request or summoning his lorarius. I did not care; a whipping would be less painful, or so I thought at the time. Before he could speak, Livia said, “You and my mother were so naïve.” Her laugh was almost genuine. “Did you really think Boaz would not get full value from me? Watch and see what I learned.”
“No.” Gods above and below, Livia had pushed dominus to his decision. “Leave us, Alexander, and take with you the knowledge of just how close you came to reaping my displeasure.”
My back ached and my stomach threatened revolution, yet I managed to find my way back to my quarters. I would never know if Livia spoke the truth, just as I would never know if being dismissed from that room was better or worse than the sights my imagination plagued me with that night. To blot them out I squeezed my eyelids shut till suns and stars blazed behind my eyes. One shining godsend careened among them: Sabina would die without ever knowing that no decent freedman would ever take her despoiled daughter for a wife.
PART II - Master to Slave
Chapter XXIV
62 BCE - Summer, Baiae
Year of the consulship of
Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena
“Alexander, back so soon?” asked Crassus.
It was early summer, and for the eighth year running we had escaped to the south, hoping to trade the stink and heat of Rome for the ornate tranquility of the general’s Baiaen villa. This morning, however, peace and quiet were being trampled by engineers working on the new mineral baths Crassus was having installed halfway down the hillside. The sun was just beginning to warm the southern slopes of smoldering Vesuvius.
In Egypt, a daughter of pharaoh Ptolemy Auletes, Cleopatra Philopator, had just celebrated her seventh birthday. Earlier in the year, a conspiracy to overthrow the Republic was thwarted and its leader, Lucius Sergius Catilina was killed, thanks entirely, to hear him tell it, to Marcus Tullius Cicero. Pompeius Magnus had been busy in the east, his armies turning nations into Roman provinces, including Pontus, Phoenicia, the two Syrias and Judea. The Jews barricaded themselves in their temple fortress, but it fell to the Pompey’s machines of war. He killed twelve thousand of the defenders, profaned the temple by entering the Holy of Holies, but left the gold and relics therein intact, ordering the temple purified and restored. For his conquests he would receive his third and greatest triumph. But my hand runs away from my thoughts.
Censor, Propraetor and proconsul Crassus, through generosity, popularity and the political lubricant of gold judiciously distributed, controlled much of the senate; save a triumph of his own, there was no honor or office left for him to garner. He had become one of the most influential men in Rome, and certainly the richest. So wealthy was he, in fact, that the people bestowed upon him his fourth agnomen; he was now known throughout the land as Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives, Crassus the Rich.
“Word has already spread,” I replied. “They know you’re back for the season. Half the town was up and waiting for