A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow - By Levkoff, Andrew Page 0,55

all factions know we are both armed and frightening.”

“Petrocorii need no woad to frighten tiny Romans. It is a wonder to my men that such a little people have built such temples. We have decided you have somehow enslaved a race of giants. Or wizards.” He looked pointedly at me. “The blue stain stays as my general commands. Who wants to wash it off? By Lugos, water is not for washing; it’s for making ale. Hah!”

“It’s a drink worthy of the gods,” Publius conceded.

“You Romans wash too much to be true men. Washing is for women, to clean our breeches and our vests. And even they barely let their toes touch the stream! Hah!”

Chapter XII

56 - 55 BCE Winter, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus

As our little troupe, minus the valiant Minucius Valens, made our way up the hill toward home, I watched Publius leading his horse, walking beside lady Cornelia, flirting without shame. What had happened to the irrepressible six year-old scamp playing in the dirt, digging for worms? The line of the boy’s future had been drawn along a Roman road paved with golden stones. Here was the man, but it was the child I remembered, squirming like one of his captive night crawlers while I tried my best to tutor him in his studies. All he wanted to hear were tales of gods and the heroic deeds of men. Now, here he was, uniformed, magnificent, lethal, his helmet tucked under his weather-bronzed arm, the embodiment of his childhood fantasies, leading his black stallion to walk beside the lady Cornelia. Publius was newly twenty-six, but this was a different man entirely from the one I had last seen leaving for Gaul almost four years ago.

Physically he was much the same: blue eyes, short, black hair, rectangular, ill-shaved, stony face. Still cocksure, still confident he could get into a brawl and come out smiling, though bleeding and bruised. But now, every last vestige of ‘boy’ had evaporated. This was not only a warrior, but a commander of men, men he had beaten in battle and yet, with his own personal magic had been able to forge into auxiliaries as loyal to him as any wolf to its pack leader. Perhaps a greater achievement—he had the admiration and respect of Roman officers twice his age.

In addition to the twelve cohorts now making camp on the Campus Martius, which Caesar had relinquished to insure my master sat for the second time in the curule chair of consul, Publius had arrived in Rome with one thousand Celtic horse; one thousand, can you imagine? A calculation I tried unsuccessfully to avoid making in my head was the total number of trophies, bereft of body, now dangling from their saddle horns.

•••

Tertulla was blindfolded and laughing, a hand to her mouth. Crassus stood behind her, his arms about her waist as they stood waiting before the tall cedar and iron double doors. From the interior of the atrium, I thought I saw Hanno peek briefly out from the shadows, but then whoever it was, was gone. We stopped at the circular fountain of Neptune, pounded by the crash of foaming marble surf, his painted green torso kept glistening by an invisible pipe hidden in the top of his head. The watery regurgitations from the mouths of twenty marble fish surrounding the god splashed into the basin below, masking the sounds of our approach. Publius held out the reins of his horse without taking his eyes off his parents, assuming with confidence that some lesser person would immediately obey the implicit command to take them. I did.

Livia stepped up beside me, abandoning Publius’ cloak to the sole possession of lady Cornelia. As much as I loved the animals, I had a frantic urge to rid myself of my sweating, equine charge. I caught the eye of a stable boy and passed the reins to him. He led the beast away to be dried off, brushed, blanketed and fed. Here we stood, alive. When I was first forced into slavery, I had wished for death, but that was a far distant memory now. I had never been so glad to find myself taking one breath and then the next. I felt newborn and rash. I reached for Livia’s hand once more, and she did not resist the gentle intrusion.

Members of the familia were emerging as quietly as they could from both sides of the house, some with tears in their eyes.