A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow - By Levkoff, Andrew Page 0,39
Alexander, let us walk in the peristyle, so I may at least enjoy the purpling clouds while I discover what it is that has upset you so.”
Before we could make good our departure, Hanno came lurching around the corner and skidded straight into me. “Master!” he cried, his forehead buried in my chest. I hugged him briefly and squatted to his height.
“I’ve told you before, Hannibal, I am not your master. Now go with Lucius to pick a new butcher.”
“No! That’s boring.”
“Well, then, is there anyone who could use a little help in the kitchen?” A dozen hands rose, some with genuine enthusiasm. Dinner was delayed by only a quarter of an hour as a result of Hanno’s “assistance.”
Crassus handed the spoon to the cook standing closest to him and out we went into the cooling evening air. “That is your fault,” I told him. “It was you who told him to call me master.”
“I don’t mind,” Crassus said, licking a thumb. “Why do you?” I chose not to answer.
One of the peacocks had somehow strayed into the garden and lay beside the gravel path, the sweep of its tail an arrogant, opulent display, even in repose. It lifted its azurite head as we strolled passed, but otherwise ignored us. It had a right to feel safe. Lady Tertulla had issued orders forbidding the birds to be butchered and served alongside their artfully arranged feathers as was typical in other great homes. If they are sacred to Juno, she argued, they will be treated with no less honor in this house.
Crassus was right about the clouds: it was a singular sunset, and although our view of it was restricted by the peristyle to a rectangle of stately palaces in hues of orange, red and cream floating above our heads, the fading light fell upon us with a warm glow. How lovely it would be to stroll here with Livia, to hold her hand, to turn and pull her close. For a moment, I lost my grip on why it was we were here.
“You know,” said Crassus, “it isn’t that I don’t enjoy a quiet walk in the garden with you, Alexander, but typically I reserve those for my wife.”
Color rushed to my cheeks. “Forgive me, dominus. It is so beautiful this evening that I quite forgot myself.”
“Understandable. I am not the perfect partner for you either, I suspect. Ah, the luxury to be able to forget oneself,” he said his voice wistful, “how do you do it?” The question was rhetorical. We walked a pace or two, then Crassus regained his usual, affable condescension. “Our strolls, however, are more seemly when liberally enlivened with the spice of discourse. Now what is it you wanted to see me about so desperately that you needed to use that tone before the help?”
“Humble apologies, dominus. May I speak freely?”
“You may never speak freely, Alexander, but you may speak.”
“Very droll, dominus. I am serious.”
“As was I. What troubles you?”
I took a breath. “You, dominus. When I first came to you, you commanded me to challenge you, to teach you all I knew and all that I might learn, and never to cower before you.”
“I remember, and only occasionally regret the conversation.”
“Well then, I know speak under that aegis. You are hurting the city you love, and its people. Perhaps you are blind to the upheaval you are causing, perhaps you are not. I suspect the latter. Either way, you need to know that Rome suffers at your hands.”
“At my hands,” Crassus said pensively, rolling the sound of my accusation around in his mouth as if he were still back in the kitchen sampling tidbits. We walked a few more paces in the dimming light. When he spoke again, he held his left hand in his right while rolling the plain iron band around his third finger. “I have never removed this ring, not in thirty years. I have heard it said that a nerve connects this one finger directly to the heart, and that the band is worn here to symbolize the bond between husband and wife. Do you know of this, Alexander?”
“I have heard it, yes, but I am aware of no autopsy proving it either true or false.”
“I never gave it much thought,” he sighed, “one way or the other. But now I believe the theory has merit. Why is this? Because I can no longer feel the connection that held your mistress and I so close. Caesar cut it in Luca.