Chapter V

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.

Livia did not grumble when asked to help; her vitality needed an outlet and almost any activity would do. She sang and scrubbed, creating dance steps that used the mop as a partner. More than once Sabina had to remind her they were no longer in Salamis. Romans, she admonished, find dancing vulgar. So Sabina, too, had learned the benefits of remaining invisible. A lesson yet to be absorbed by the dazzling and willful Livia.

“Then Romans,” she replied, fixing me with an impish leer, “are the thing you see when you lift a horse’s tail.”

I stifled a guffaw as Sabina exclaimed, “Livia! You must never speak like that.” She glanced toward the hallway, a reflexive movement common in non-Roman conversations:  were we being overheard, there would be consequences. Roman consequences. “Where ever did you learn such a thing?”

“At home, of course.” And she was gone, twirling off at speed. Sabina called her back unsuccessfully. The sadness came rushing back into her expression, a thief of joy intent on stealing a mother’s smile. “Home?” I tried. “But this is her home.” Sabina ignored me as she refilled my water cup from a terra cotta pitcher. “Keep drinking,” she said, her healer’s demeanor restored. She ruffled my hair with genuine affection. I ached to know more, but dared not pick further at a scab that was not my own.

***

By the time we reached the entrance to the tablinum, sweat dotted my forehead; Sabina steadied me, her arm an oak branch under my own. The study was small, crowded with the work assigned to one of Sulla’s new favorites. The day was surprisingly warm;  curtains had been pulled so that the room was open to the adjacent peristyle. Iron rings discouraged a spray of scrolls from going outside to play with the occasional breeze. There was room for but one chair, and its occupant was unlikely to give it up to the bandaged young heron wobbling before him. Sunlight fell from the columned garden onto Crassus’ outstretched, sandaled foot, the leather lacings only a few shades darker than his tanned calf. His bare arms draped languidly over cedar armrests, hands hanging down in repose. The man I must now call lord wore a tunic hemmed with silver thread; the only other adornment was a band of iron on his left ring finger. His form begged to be sculpted; his face belonged on coins. Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome’s new masters, had just turned thirty-four. As my eyes rose to meet his, I saw that he was studying me as intently as I had been taking account of him.

“You live,” he said.

“Apparently.”

“I am pleased.”

I did not respond.

“I’ve decided I am not going to have you whipped.”

“I am pleased,” I said with emphasis.

There followed a second of silence in which I tried to hold his gaze, but faltered. “Take him back, Sabina,” Crassus said with a flick of his wrist. “Give him another day’s rest, then have him report to Pío.” We turned to go, but he stopped us. “You studied philosophy, did you not?” I nodded. “Next week,” he said, returning to his work, “you’ll spend an hour each day tutoring my son. Why should we hire out when we have our very own expert on the Greek thinkers.”

“But how did ....”

Crassus did not look up. He took another scroll from the pile, but his lips curled into an involuntary smile. “We keep excellent records on captives’ backgrounds. Unlike some, I read them.”

“Isn’t Marcus a little young?” Sabina asked.

“When the other boys start at seven, he’ll be that much further ahead. Just an hour a day; enough to whet his appetite.”

“Yes, dominus,” Sabina said. She elbowed me.

“Yes, dominus,” I repeated dully, marveling at his knowledge of me, and that he had bothered to discover it.

Crassus spoke again. “Now we shall ascertain if your educational gifts equal your prowess as an archery butt.”

My face reddened. Was that a dismissal? Crassus read his parchment while we stood there, stuck in a hot, uncomfortable limbo. I shifted painfully on my leg. Finally, he said, “Oh, one more thing.” He looked up, his expression impenetrable. “Pío is a Laletani - Hispanic. His Latin is passable but rudimentary. He does not understand sarcasm. He boasts twice my weight and half my sense of humor. Need I say more?” he asked with eyebrow raised. I stared at him in mild surprise. Was he trying to look out for me, or was he merely protecting his investment? Dare I ask? Too late. The interview was over. Crassus had returned to his work and the moment to wave the banner of my own ironical sense of humor had passed. Timing is all.

In any case, my stamina was flagging.

That was the extent of my first conversation with Marcus Crassus. I would not have another for three months.