Andrew Levkoff - The other Alexander

“My father called for Plocamus, our steward, to assist him, and he shuffled bravely out from amongst the servants. But he was old and frail. You pushed him aside and…” Crassus faltered. “You told him he could not lift a sword, let alone brace it.”

“I know damn well what I…”

“SILENCE!” Sulla bellowed. “Go on, Marcus.”

“I cannot. Rage and sorrow both have stopped my mouth. Oh gods! Will you not let me avenge them now?!”

“Draw your sword,” said Sulla, “for its thirst shall be slaked. I have heard the tale, my friend, and would be your voice, for the story eats at me and must out. This traitorous whoreson took his own sword and knelt before your father, bracing the butt against his boot as is the custom. Publius Licinius addressed the house, but his gaze was fixed on Lucius, his eldest remaining son. ‘Mourn not,’ he said, ‘for I happily sell all my remaining days to make this purchase. When Marcus returns, express my sorrow at not being able to say goodbye.’ He looked down at his murderer and added, ‘Be not forsworn,’ and then he fell upon the blade.”

“I could not go to him!” Crassus cried with a voice aged with five years of guilt and anger. “Three men held me fast, their strength doubled to save their own lives as well as mine. Pallus whispered ‘forgive me’ in my ear as he clasped a hand over my mouth.”

“A foul business,” Sulla said. “And here is the worst of it. Before the sword could inflict a lethal blow, Damasippus thrust a hand up to your father’s shoulder, arresting his descent. He nodded to the men holding your brother and smiled as they slit his throat. Seeking your father’s eyes once more, he grinned as he said, “Marius bids me say thusly: you and your family shall become as dust, your coins melted, your works dismantled, and your household utterly destroyed.” He cast his stiffened arm aside, your father fell, and Damasippus laughed as the light went from his eyes. You and your three brave servants were the only ones to escape.”

The sound of weeping came from above, and more cries than the sobs of Crassus swept down to me on the wind. There soon followed silence. I strained to listen, my breath a caged captive in my chest.

Sulla said, “Marcus will kill you now, Lucius Junius. You will receive no rights of burial. Your body will be cast into the Tiber. Your possessions and property will be proscribed and your family and all that called you friend will be hunted down and put to the sword. When you are slain, I will take your severed head and send a message with it, more convincing than any inked on parchment. I shall catapult it over the walls of Praeneste so that the son of Marius will know his battle for Rome is over. For him, like you, all is lost.”

There came a thud as the condemned must have been forced to his knees. Sulla said in a solemn voice, “He is yours, Marcus.”

I had seen these executions before and cringed at the thought of what was going on above me. Crassus must have stood behind his victim, placed his sword point at the base of the neck and with both hands thrust straight down. I heard nothing, but the deed must have been done.

Because then they took the head.

82 — 81 BCE — Winter, Rome Year of the consulship of Gaius Marius the Younger and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo

There was a girl, maybe ten or eleven. Perhaps twelve; I’ve never been good with children. They puzzle me. She stood by wherever it was I lay and stared at me with an intensity that, had I the strength, would have made me look away. Green eyes the color of a hummingbird’s back. I tried to smile at her, but I don’t think my face cooperated. She began to whistle, backing away into the middle of the room and dancing to the rhythm she set. Her long hair, as red and gold as a Piraeus sunrise, spun about her face as she twirled. It made me dizzy to watch her, but I was transfixed. The back of my head throbbed like a second heart. Before I lost consciousness again, a thought lurched past, irrelevant and nonsensical: her tresses are silken and she has no freckles. Unusual for a redhead.

My legs were brittle fire. If I moved, they would crack and break apart like charred paper. Someone replaced the cloth on my forehead with one dampened by cool water and aromatic oils. Ecstasy. The blanket soaked with my sweat was pulled away and someone gasped. “Livia, get out,” a woman commanded. Footsteps retreated and next I felt the pressure of gently probing fingers. I groaned. My heart had abandoned my chest altogether. Now it fell to my thigh, thumping against its swollen tightness. If I moved, it would burst free from the inside.

A man’s voice: “Will he live?”

The woman answered, “If the fever breaks. I must drain the wounds.” She began her work in earnest. There came a most disagreeable scream, after which I spun out of consciousness.

Two weeks later, I was summoned. Sabina, the Greek healer responsible for my recovery, guided me from the servants’ wing through the house. But for her, I would have perished in the delirium of infection that spread from my thigh until it ran up against the unyielding ministrations of my savior. As clarity returned, I found myself in the middle of a perplexing dilemma. A captive quickly learns that the odds of survival are greatly improved by not drawing attention to oneself. Yet here I was, propped up on pillows (rough-woven homespun stuffed with seed hulls, but pillows nonetheless), spoon-fed hot broth by either the healer or her daughter, and given a gift withheld for so long I could scarcely count the days since I had last received it: comfort. Never in all my life had I craved someone’s attention as much as I did this spare, hard woman. Her face, once beautiful, had been weathered down to handsome. She was tall but never seemed to stand to her full height, as if her trials were a constant weight against which she strove. She was not quite old enough to be my mother, but each moment spent in her company brought painfully sweet reminders of family, and home.

A non-ambulatory servant will test the patience of the most understanding Roman, so I drank Sabina’s potions, hobbled about as long and as often as I could endure it, and did everything I could to assist in my own convalescence. On these brief walks down dark hallways, my arm gripping her narrow shoulder, her strength supplying most of what kept us vertical, my best conversational skills were not enough to draw Sabina out. In two weeks I learned little more than that she was from Attica and had been married. Her husband had been killed almost a year ago, I know not how. Like me she had only recently come into the service of Crassus. She evaded all my queries; I did not even know if she was bought or free. Yet there was some part of her story she could not conceal. An unknown hardship lived just beneath the surface of her smile, etching lines of care about her eyes. Sometimes I would catch her standing silently, staring off in some sad reverie from which I was loath to startle her. It saddened me to see this, and to know there was no way I could help.

But oh how she brightened when Livia alighted in the room, which the child did whenever her own chores were done. Then, the gremlins that tormented Sabina dropped their detestable tools and fled the moment she set eyes on her daughter. Livia was ready with a quick and fervent hug, but flitted off again, questioning this, examining that. The girl could not keep still; when she wasn’t talking she was whistling, and the whistling inevitably led to dancing.

Her mother tried to channel some of that energy by handing her a dust cloth, then a broom, then a mop. Sabina claimed the servants assigned to housekeeping were sufficient for cleaning barns and sties, but little else. Sabina was neat the way a Roman pine was coniferous. I have found her on her hands and knees scrubbing the grout between the flagstones with an old tooth rag and a bucket of diluted vinegar. And then again three days later.