Other Alexander, The (11 page)

At last Pío stepped onto the Sacra Via. Below him, the greatest city in the world sprawled like the octopus he used to spear as a child. Freedom, he had learned, could not be priceless, for its value was less than freedom and home combined. In this hard, unforgiving place, the salt spray tang never filled his nostrils, the smell of grilled mackerel and onions never made his mouth water, and the sight of fishing boats anchored in waters so clear that the red and yellow hulls seemed to float in mid-air, this was only a vivid but distant memory. The village of his youth had receded to a few faded images. He looked up and smiled; at least the same blue vault arced here and in his mind’s eye. It was enough. Gently, he set Nestor on the paving stones and sank slowly to his knees. He was very tired.

“Pío!” Nestor keened, “don’t leave me here!” He reached up with bloodied fingers. “Don’t let them do this to me! Take me with you, I beg you!”

Pío looked down and said, “Yes,
amor
, you come with me.” He lay down beside Nestor and put his once powerful hands about Nestor’s throat. “
Momento
,” he said. Their foreheads touched. “Can you see them?” Instead of tightening, Pío’s grip relaxed.

In a little while, Malchus and Betto eased Nestor up off the stones and brought him back into the house. They came back with a cart for Pío and left him in the guardhouse; Boaz’s men were there within an hour to dispose of the body.

•••

Of the nine of us present for that midday meal, four had not eaten figs:  Pío, Livia and two of cook’s helpers, Mercurius and that woman who cried “how could you” on the day I first met Pío. Her name, I regret, escapes me.

“I’m certain,” Sabina told Crassus that night. “It was tincture of henbane.” Tertulla stood uncomfortably by her husband, but was determined to participate in the running of their home. She had even insisted on helping with the cleanup, discarding her palla for an old tunic and scrubbing the tiles of the atrium on her hands and knees with the others.

“Diluted, henbane opens and calms the breathing passages,” Sabina said. “The bottle I keep in my stores is gone. My records show that it was three-eighths full, so unless someone ate every fig in the bowl, the dose would not be fatal.”

“And a non-fatal dose?” asked Crassus.

“Depending on how much was ingested, delirium, paralysis. Brief unconsciousness.”

“You must put a lock on the cabinet,” Tertulla commanded.

“There was,
domina
. It was broken.”

“Find a stronger one.”

“Yes,
domina
. As soon as the shops open tomorrow.”

Crassus asked about the staff that had been poisoned.

“All are resting comfortably,
dominus
. I sacrificed a goat, roasted its bones and gave everyone a dose of bone black. Because Alexander ate half the bowl all by himself, I forced him to drink the bone black, plus a reduction of mulberry leaves boiled in vinegar. Everyone should be fine by morning.”

“This makes no sense,” he said. “Why sicken, but not kill? Why hurt others, if it was Alexander Pío was after?”

“I think,” Sabina answered, “he thought he could get away with the murder. Alexander’s love of figs is no secret. Pío wanted to make it appear like bad fruit had killed him. That’s why he couldn’t break his neck or stab him. He could leave no mark. If others ate the figs and became ill, so much the better:  it would help mask the truth. Except that I chanced upon him in the act.”

“And for that we thank you,” Crassus said without emotion. “Do you always carry your scalpels with you?”

“Always. I never know where I’ll be when I ...”

“Have to slit someone’s throat?”

“
Dominus
, it was a miracle you did not return to find two corpses instead of one.”

“A miracle, yes. How do you come by such fighting skills?”

“No skill, only luck.” Crassus looked skeptical. “Why did you not flee?”

“I could not leave knowing Pío would finish what he had set out to do. I would never have been able to get help in time.”

“So you killed him.”

“I am deeply sorry,
dominus
. I meant to cripple, to incapacitate, not kill. I know how much Pío ...”

“And why,” Crassus said, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose, “why have you been bringing flowers to Alexander’s room? Do you wish a
contubernium
with him?”

“What? No! It was ... for Livia.”

“Ah. I see.” Crassus did not press her. “It is late, and we all need rest. Go to your beds.”

•••

Crassus looked in on me before he retired. I was groggy and my limbs still tingled, but the ceiling had lost its animation. He rested his lamp on the nightstand and sat on my pallet just where Pío had of late been visiting. Putting his hand on my shoulder he asked if I recognized him.

“Of course,
dominus
. I am sorry.”

“For what? It is I who must apologize to you. I am glad you are still with us.”

“I am tougher than I look.”

“I doubt that. Until I think of a more permanent solution, I want you to become my new
atriensis
. I’ll go over what is required, but I need to know if you think you can handle the responsibility.”

I was struck, not dumb, but witless. In times of stress and shock, when mouth outpaced mind and completely overran good manners, I fell back on my old standby, pedagogery. “Is not the original meaning of
atriensis
,” I stammered, “one responsible for the care of the atrium? Later, as well-to-do Latin homes grew, it came to mean chief steward, but the modern meaning is hardly more significant than hall monitor?”

“Calm yourself, Alexander. We are not in your classroom. If you must know, and I see that you must, I prefer the role as defined by my father and his father before him:  as my
atriensis
you shall be master of my household, responsible for everything and everyone that in any way touches my home or my family. Or would you prefer being elevated to hall monitor?”

If only he were serious. “What of the school?” I asked.

“You will hire a new
grammaticus
.”

“I am certain I would make a better teacher.”

“As I say, it is a temporary post.”

I expelled a deep breath. “Then I am honored to accept.”

“Of course, there is the matter of Nestor’s chastisement. Nothing today has changed my will on that score.” He saw the appalled look on my face. “You’re right. Not a fit assignment for your first day on the job. Never mind. I’ll do it myself.”

And he did.

Chapter XIV

80 - 76 BCE   -   Rome
             

Year of the consulship of

Gnaeus Octavius and Gaius Scribonius Curio

I was very quick to make myself indispensable. My accounts balanced to the
as,
the larders were always full and my promotion was begrudged little, mostly because there was none but myself remotely suited to the post. Like the mark upon Nestor’s brow, the shock of our tragedy receded to a dull throbbing, but never healed:  it felt as if his collar were worn by each of us, and the sight of him skulking about his chores was a constant reminder of the shame brought down upon our house. Nestor was reduced to performing the lowest of household tasks, not by me but by Crassus himself:  cleaning the toilets and collecting urine for the fullers. I could not bear the sight of him. True, I was the intended victim of his crime, but to see his sentence carried out firsthand, every day, grated against my nature, a pumice stone applied too long to the same callous. 

In the early days, I was so fearful of criticism I worked into the black of night poring over every detail of every task. If the post was temporary, there was no long-term need to replace myself as teacher, nor any desire, so that was one task I let slip. The result was a workload that more than doubled. I managed, though I admit my success was insured in part by Crassus himself. Friction from almost any problem was easily greased with his ever-expanding coffers and willingness to enlarge my budget whenever the need arose. It arose almost daily.

Mind you, there was nothing in his manner that made my promotion seem anything but temporary. He would pass me on his way out the door and waggle a finger at me. “I’m on my way to another interview,” he’d say. Or, “Still looking.” Or, “You’re just too young.” I swear on one occasion I heard him chuckling as I raced off to do better, be faster, panic more deeply. I was eating little and sleeping less. I believe it was five or six months after I began this purgatory that Crassus finally took pity on me, or more likely that Tertulla convinced him to decide one way or the other and stop torturing me.

I remember it was a fine summer’s day. A cardinal as red as a yew berry was singing his redundant yet not unpleasant song in one of the peristyle’s fig trees. I was hurrying to the kitchen to confer with cook. Crassus came out from his study. I tried to nod a quick greeting but my body interpreted the signals from my brain as an order to cringe. As we passed each other, he reached out and grabbed the sleeve of my tunic. A poked frog could not have performed better. When I had settled back to earth he leaned in and spoke softly to me. “The post is yours.” He smiled and continued on his way. Later that evening he announced his decision to the entire
familia
; I found the voice to thank him then, but at the time my pounding heart had stuffed itself in my mouth, choking all communication.

Now that Sulla was gone and the
populares
were trying their damndest to pry back the cold fingers of the dictator’s legislative legacy, Crassus’ true genius had time and opportunity to flourish. His influence in the senate grew with every oration. He would hear almost any grievance, especially from plebian businessmen shunned by elitist
optimates.
These were granted a voice and advocacy by Crassus. He would argue on their behalf, breaking the legal barricades to their success with no other weapon than the ballista of his gifted tongue. The more he spoke, the more senators crowded to his side of the
curia
, for it was no small trick for a patrician to earn the trust of the equestrian class and the popular support of the people. Less persuasive legislators began to “cling to his toga,” as the saying goes. While publically he performed these acts for the good of the people of Rome, privately he was gracious in his acceptance of both fees and percentages of future profits.

In his march on Rome, Sulla had been generous to the one legate of whom it could be said:  without him the city would not have fallen. And so our master was given the house in which we lived, but also many others of lesser value taken from proscribed supporters of Marius and Cinna. These Crassus repaired, embellished and sold at multiples of their original worth. The cash was never idle, for Crassus used it either to buy more property or loan without interest to those senators who might some day need prodding to reassess their positions and vote with him. When I first became
atriensis
, my master’s worth totaled three hundred talents, a vast sum about which the average citizen could only dream. By the time we left for Parthia, his wealth had grown twenty-five times as large.

We had been settled for less than a year in the house given to Crassus by general Sulla when he began building an estate to match his aspirations. It sprawled over a tenth of the entire Palatine, dwarfing our existing home. Some senators, led by Sulla himself, accused my master of displaying five million
sesterces
worth of ostentation, but Crassus had a simple theory:  people respect wealth. Make your home a hovel and be treated like a pauper. Live in a palace and be treated like a king. I had a theory, too:  an estate such as this would be all the revenge left to a man who had lost his family, his possessions and been forced to live as an outlaw. For Crassus, this meal of aggrandizement could never be anything but unsatisfying, but the building and sustaining of it would feed many mouths.

The site was to the northeast of the old
domus
, gathered from the razed homes of three proscribed senators, now dead, whose property Crassus had purchased from the state for a pittance. The new home took two years to build and was the marvel of the city. Its forest of columns, fields of terra cotta roofs and moons of not one but three domed baths looked directly down upon the forum. And every time the populace looked up at the top of Rome’s first hill, the man they thought of was Crassus. He was only thirty-nine years old.

Within this opulent warren of fountains, formal gardens, heroic statues, tranquil pools and entertainment rooms that grew from intimate alcoves to the grand atrium, sequestered in the middle of it all Crassus had given to me a
tablinum
worthy of an elder patrician. There were two tables, several cushioned chairs, a
lectus
should I feel the need for a snack or a nap, and storage along two walls for hundreds of scrolls. A rolling cart contained writing utensils, cups, goblets and a small amphora of wine tucked neatly in the middle. At my disposal were rivers of parchment, forests of stili and fountains of ink. On overcast days, I need only look up at the groined vault of the ceiling to admire a painted blue sky cradling clouds of yellow and rose, lit from beneath by a rising sun. Double sconces on all four wall corners dispersed any gloom. The eastern exit led out into a peristyle so monumental that on a hazy day I could barely see the columns at the far end. Beyond the opposite curtains lay a small, verdant atrium open to the sky which I learned was my private refuge for contemplation and study. My office, I discovered with abashed pride, was adjacent to the one belonging to Crassus.

This bounty of space and privacy was more than matched by my private quarters. Though I would spend far too little time here, the miracle of this room was not its wall paintings or its size or the exceptional feature of a small window that opened onto my study’s atrium. It was the location of my
cubiculum
that set my mind spinning between joy and bitterness, elation and shame. The room where I was to take my rest was not in the servants’ wing. Just down the hall lay the family’s quarters; no relay of runners need answer the call of the
dominus
to fetch me. The master himself could summon me by barely raising his voice.

When Crassus, giddy as a child with a new toy, first led me to my room, I was beset by a confusion of guilt and hubris. I thought of the cart full of captives that had carried me to this place. What had become of those innocents? How did they fare? Were they even alive? Even as my heart reached out to them, I confess a part of me did not care. I had survived the ordeal, and this was my reward. I deserved it, I thought, then reviled myself for even thinking such a thing for even an instant. What was so special about me, after all? I had suffered no more than they.

Crassus saw my consternation and said, “Come now, Alexander. Do not spoil this moment. Wait until tomorrow to do what you do best:  think too much. For now, just accept your good fortune.”

“I am grateful,
dominus
, yet I cannot help but think of those less fortunate than I.”

“You are in Rome, man. You had better start thinking of yourself.”

“But why,” I asked him, “am I worthy of such magnificent lodging when in the old house even Pío slept under guard with the rest of the servants.”

Crassus replied, “By Jupiter, I swear Daedalus himself could have engineered the labyrinth that is your mind. Satisfy yourself with this: 
Servi aut nascuntur, aut fiunt
. Slaves are either born or made. Pío slid from between his mother’s legs a newborn slave. His entire life could be distilled down to a single choice:  obey or disobey. For almost all his years, till love found him, he was a good man – he obeyed. But you, you question, you argue, you think. In the end, of course, you too, must obey. But you make
me
think, a feat none such as Pío could perform. Study Alexander, learn all you can; teach me, challenge me, and do not cower like the rest. The more you know, the more valuable you will be to me. You are not like Pío; you have been made a slave, but damn it, man, it is just a word. Serve me, and I will fulfill every dream that that young Athenian philosopher ever had. This life is a greater life than any you could have imagined. Learn to trust me if you can, and I shall do likewise. Can you do this?”

“Until you decide otherwise,
dominus
, I am your servant.”

Crassus laughed. “Yes, Alexander, you are. I hear the undercurrent of insolence in your tone and I relish it. You will not disappoint me.” He walked to the doorway and turned. “Enjoy your quarters. You’ll earn them.”

•••

This was the humble start of many cerebral wrestling matches between us. I did not intend to lose. Of course, it fell to me to populate this self-contained village on the Palatine with furniture, landscaping, and ... people. So many people, in fact, that a separate, two-story barracks would be built near the main house. The irony was not lost on Crassus; he may have thought me capable, but there must have been an element of mirth in watching me squirm from on high. How would I handle conducting the purchase of my fellow man to serve this house? Would I bridle? Balk? Refuse? Any of these would have given him great pleasure and opportunity for discourse, let alone chastisement.

I decided that Crassus would be disappointed.

•••

In the first days of my promotion, I would find little time for rest, but when I could, I took it in a small copse toward the western edge of the estate, unique for its wild woods and lack of landscaping. As the new estate grew up around us, its crushed marble walkways and formal gardens, as breathtaking as they were, began to weigh heavily upon me. There was something claustrophobic in perfection.

Several foot trails tunneled through this forgotten forest’s leafy shade, and while the place wasn’t the hilly farmland of home, it did spark memories which I was not quite ready to surrender. At first Crassus wanted the architects to raze the site to make way for a shrine to Bellona, the war goddess whose hand had helped Sulla to victory and Crassus to staggering wealth. I talked him out of it with the truth:  it was the only place I had seen in Rome that reminded me of Aristotle’s Lyceum, and perhaps each of us might stroll there, separately or together, to collect ourselves and contemplate whatever inspiration the woods lent us.

It was after I realized I would soon be hiring servants of my own that I withdrew to this sanctuary to reflect upon the man I had become. I walked the dirt paths, listened to birdsong, inhaled the scents of spring and marveled at nature’s unsculpted bounty.

I know I am cursed with a mind that will not remain quiet; it will ruminate and fret till rough rocks of ideas have been tumbled into smooth stones of logic, either that or into dust. As I walked, I considered my condition. Was it better to be born into bondage rather than as a free man reduced to such a dismal state? Better to exist in a perpetual fog of blessed ignorance, or to have tasted sweet self-determination, even for a little while? I say the latter, even though it is the way of pain. But why talk of choice when that commodity, once foolishly taken for granted, had become precious by its absence? The way of pain was my way. And since I have just stated that as my preference, I should have been content.

Even Aristotle believed in the natural condition where one man could be owned by another. “For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another – which is also
why
he belongs to another.” If you
are
one, you deserve to
be
one. However, if you have the ability to reason, he argued, as someone might if he were, say, a student captured in the destruction of Athens, then the victorious society should hold out freedom as a reward. I wonder how Aristotle might have revised his philosophy had he himself been taken as a trophy of war. You see, I did not question the system so much as rail that I had fallen victim to it.