stay. I would have you stay.”
He took both her hands in his. “I cannot turn back, nor would I. Caesar has taken enough from me. No more. When I return, I will retrieve the bulla aurea of my childhood and wear it in the triumphal procession. This I swear to you and to any god who will listen. I did not act that night in Luca, to my everlasting disgrace. I must act now.”
“Then,” said my lady, “I will pray for you daily. Twice daily.” She reached up to dominus, and drawing him down to her, pressed her body full against his own and they kissed as I had not seen them do in many months.
“I have loved none but you, I love you still, and I shall love you always.”
She said this to him then, and he shook with emotion when he heard it. “I summon Venus and Mars to join in both love and in war. Come, Venus Victrix, come quickly now. Forsake Vulcan and with You, Father of Warfare, take pity on us, turn evil aside from us, and preserve my husband's and my sons’ life. Gird them with the strength of Hercules and the cunning of Mercury. Vanquish any and all who oppose them. Let not the scales of victory hover above the blocks, but fall decidedly in favor of, and with the full weight and power of Crassus.”
•••
Many months later, as he kneeled in the bloodied dust of a strange and desolate land, Crassus would marvel at the clarity of his recall of their last moment together—the warmth of her skin through the fabric of her tunic, the smell of almond and bergamot in her hair, the soft pressure of her arms about his neck. He wore the memory of her embrace like armor, and though he knew it would not save his life, it would be all that was left to him to ease his passage into whatever lay beyond.
Chapter XIX
55 BCE - Fall, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives
“We could be home within a year,” I whispered. Felix was asleep in his crib. From his own cot, Hanno kept shushing our every sentence with a noise louder than our speech. I lit another lamp to aid in my packing.
Hanno said, “Bright.”
“I am sorry, son. It will only be for a little while. Try to sleep.”
“If I try, it never works.” I smiled at his exhibition of logic and he smiled back, knowing he had pleased me.
“I can’t leave him, Andros,” Livia said, moving from our bed to stand over the crib. Under one arm she held a bundle of my folded tunics; with her free hand she tucked Felix’s blanket up under his dimpled chin and bent to kiss his forehead. “I can’t do it.”
“We have no choice.”
“That is what angers me the most.” I took the tunics from her and laid them neatly in the open trunk that lay in the center of our bedroom, a cubiculum so well-appointed and lavish it would put many senators’ own lodgings to shame.
“Why are you still here?” Crassus stood in our doorway, the portiere drawn aside. His hands were not empty.
Livia and I turned and spoke simultaneously, “Dominus!”
Hanno sat up in his cot. “Father Jupiter! Hug?” At least the boy had learned to ask.
“Not now, Hanno. Father Jupiter is displeased.”
“That’s all right,” Hanno said, completely oblivious of our master’s tone. “I’ll wait right here.”
“I thought,” I said, “to spend one more day with my family before departing for Brundisium.”
“I told you I needed you there by the end of the week. You were supposed to have left today. It was not a suggestion, Alexandros.” Crassus only called me by my birth name when he was truly angry.
“Dominus…,” Livia started.
“The answer is ‘no,’ medicus. I did not send you to Egypt to learn to be a wet nurse. You and your skills will follow the army.” Livia looked at the floor. Thankfully, her unbound hair hid her expression.
“If I leave the day after tomorrow, all will be in readiness for your arrival.”
“You will leave at first light. I will not have you depart the day the cover is removed from the mundus. It will be seen as an ill omen; bad enough we’ll be leaving the city before the Plebeian Games have ended.”
“Yes, dominus.”
“I am sorry to put you through this,” he said, a shade less put out. He peered into the crib like a proud grandfather. I noticed that