The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,82
us.”
“How many loaves?”
“Fifty. The crowd was well-ordered and respectful, but the bread vanished as if by magic. Our workmen were only able to snare about half before the cart was emptied of everything but crumbs.”
“How many went empty-handed?”
“I would say one hundred.”
“Tell the kitchen to bake two hundred loaves for tomorrow.”
“The bakers’ knuckles are already deep in enough dough for three hundred loaves, dominus.”
“I don’t like it when you do that,” he said, his tone unreadable.
“If my lord will elaborate on the nature of ‘that,’ I shall see to it that ‘that’ never happens again.”
“Impertinence is unbecoming in a man of your station, let alone your age.” He sighed. “I suppose I must thank you for attending to the little things that maintain my popularity.”
“In that I have had an excellent tutor.”
Crassus waved a hand in the direction of the only available open space on the table. “Put it there.” I was carrying sliced melon on a golden tray, which I set down where he indicated. “I should like,” he continued, his attention focused on a letter, “to be able to at least cling to the illusion that I am running this household.”
Another ‘Crassus compliment.’ He seemed to sense that no matter how high he raised me up, there was only one advancement that held meaning for me. I sagged with the knowledge that the more I earned it, the less chance there was that it would ever be forthcoming. I had been in service to the house of Crassus for twenty-four years, five years more than my age when I was taken.
Work followed Crassus like a puppy. Scrolls and documents covered the waist-high table. We were in the rear tablinum, the one used as an office, not the larger one where the senator received the daily stream of needy clients who apparently took no holidays, their palms raised in petrified extension. These were the armies of well-wishing men to whom Crassus was patron and on whose votes and favors he counted. They followed him everywhere. The heavy rust-colored drapes were drawn aside so that from his writing table he could look one way into the garden of the atrium and the other out across the northwest terrace to the blue of the bay. His brown tunic was trimmed in gold but he wore no other adornment.
“What in Jupiter’s name is that?”
“Melon, dominus. Honey melon.”
“Not the melon. The tray.”
“My lady bought it yesterday at the market. In Puteoli.”
Crassus reached over and hefted it with both hands. “It’s solid gold. How much did she pay for it?”
“Two thousand sesterces.”
Crassus shook his head and smiled. “I begrudge her nothing, of course.”
“It is good to know one’s value,” I said, unable to hold my tongue. I ran a finger along the dully gleaming rim. “It appears this charger and I have equal worth.”
“Tut, Alexander, you are worth that a hundred times over.” He meant it as a compliment. And to underscore the point he added, “Besides, my wife is no bargain hunter. She overpaid by half.”
I’m one of the luckiest, I reminded myself, changing the subject. “I see you’ve received a letter from Lucius Calpurnius Piso.”
“As a matter of fact I have. How did you know that? Have you been spying on me?”
“Spying would be pointless, dominus. What could I learn that you are unwilling to confide?” He agreed by nodding and raising his graying eyebrows. “The runner came from Herculaneum. Piso retires to his villa there for the season. More telling, when I entered you were wearing that grin peculiar to his correspondence.”
“And what grin is that?”
“The one you exhibit when you are about to burst out laughing.”
“His words do tickle, true enough. He mentions you, you know.” I girded myself. “Yes, right here, he says, ‘Don’t pay too much attention to that Greek of yours. Absorb too much of his philosophy and your brain will become soggy and spoil. You’ll have to purchase a new one in the market.’”
“Should you write him, tell Piso from me that his love of Epicurus blinds him to other disciplines, like science and the search for truth.”
“You can tell him yourself. They’re coming to dinner next week.”
“Are they bringing Calpurnia? What a lovely child, so poised and graceful for a thirteen year-old.”
“Am I interrupting?” The man who had crossed the atrium and now stood in the archway was slight of build, of average height, with sharp, hawk-like features. His crisp, white tunic was long-sleeved, fringed and loosely belted; in other words, quite eccentric. Not only