A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow - By Levkoff, Andrew Page 0,66

find, even with eyes shut.

“Make the sign, boy.” Hanno formed two interlocking circles with his four remaining fingers.

“Hmph. So it’s true.” The Celt left without another word.

“He cannot bear the thought,” Brenus explained, “that my heart lies with the priesthood, not with soldiering.” The crowd was leaking away like air from a bladder, drawn to other entertainments, of which Crassus had provided many, though none as thrilling as the prospect of unscheduled violence.

“Are you a Druid then?” I asked, so intrigued that I had spoken without permission.

“An initiate, yes,” he said, delicately dabbing with a fringed orarium at the yellow and purple lump that was his nose. “I saw the child standing with his four fingers thus, making interlinking circles; this is the sign of Lugos. I knew that we had been guided to this place; that our destiny did truly lie with your son, our friend and commander. I meant no harm to the boy.”

Lady Tertulla walked briskly up to us, her blue eyes flashing—never a good sign. Dominus followed close behind. “Then why,” she said tersely, “did you not release Hannibal the moment he screamed?”

“I could not, lady. Not until my prayer was said. Your Hannibal is a Godsend, a human talisman of protection and strength.”

“What kind of god,” domina said with disgust, “allows his priests to frighten a harmless child?”

Curio insinuated himself into our group. “Forgive me, domini. Titus Lucretius is about to begin his recital in the main atrium.”

“In a moment,” lady Tertulla said. “We will arrive shortly. Have him wait.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong?” Hanno whispered, back in the dubious safety of my protection.

“You are a Godsend,” Brenus said, moving closer until domina held up a wary hand. “We revere you and will serve you if you let us.”

Hearing this, Hanno smiled his smile and the entrance hall grew bright.

The small crowd of guards and armed guests, still mistrustful while two Celts remained, stayed within earshot. Betto turned to Malchus, his friend visibly relieved as he sheathed Camilla. “Nice work,” Malchus said.

Betto muttered, “I had to inhale the breath of Cerberus so we could discover Hannibal’s a good luck charm?”

“Be thankful,” Malchus said, eyeing Taog warily, “that the giant left you with a nose, and your head.”

“I have heard of these Celtic gods and their Druid priests,” Crassus was saying. “They build wicker prisons in the shape of giant men, twenty feet tall. When they are victorious in battle, they crowd their captives within and set the entire structure alight.”

“Lugos must receive our gratitude, or we will fall from his favor. We serve our god. When you parade your tortured, captured kings, slaughter your enemies and take them for slaves, what god do you glorify?”

“You disgust me,” Tertulla said. “Marcus, I do no want these people in our home.”

“I swear, no harm shall come to the boy from us,” Brenus said. “If you allow it, I will share my heartwall to insure his protection.”

“We shall see,” Crassus said. “For now, I think it best that you retire.”

One of the young men who stood beside Malchus ready to defend the city’s patriarch was a brooding, beardless, light-haired man of thirty. In the days to come, I would see his knit brows often, furrowed as frequently in concentration as in consternation, and would learn to respect his counsel. His name was Gaius Cassius Longinus. Julius Caesar would come to know him as well.

Chapter XV

55 BCE Spring, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives

I was not present for my lord’s investiture as consul, nor could I have been. Should any person not a senator, least of all a slave, enter the curia while in session, civic deliberations must by law cease immediately. The moment he took his office and sat in one of the senate’s two curule chairs (Pompeius was yet abroad, returning from his mission to secure new and more reliable grain contracts), dominus proceeded openly with his plans to leave both his newly won post and the city as soon as preparations could be completed. He was beset by friends and adversaries, optimates and populares, calling for him to reconsider this precipitous, not to mention illegal plan. He ignored them all.

Publius was brought into his counsel, but was never told the true reason for his father’s obsession. Crassus was rightly afraid that if he knew, he could not be restrained from assassinating Caesar himself. But that was not dominus’ plan. All Publius knew was that his father was intent on making