A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (55 page)

“
Understand, Alexander. This is what
latrunculi
looks like when it is played off the board.”

“General Crassus,” Melyaket said. “Please have your commanders look at this.”

“He should not be here,” Cassius said. Ignoring the general’s orders to give Melyaket free rein, he pointed and two mounted legionaries interposed themselves between the Parthian and the general.

“Where did you get that?”
Crassus asked.
Dominus
inspected the broken shaft and bloody, three-pronged point, then passed it to his legates. While we talked, Crassus wiped his hand on Eurysaces ebony neck.

“I pulled it from one of your legionaries,” Melyaket said. “Compare it to your own arrows. Your shafts are thinner
, the heads lighter, less sharp.”

“True,” said Ignatius, his disdain evident, “but your arche
rs will never get close enough for them to do any good. These are too heavy to have any range.” His other legates agreed.

“
They are not my archers, but you are wrong, gentlemen. Parthian bows are better than yours. I will demonstrate,” he said, patting a wide leather case slung by his side, “at your convenience.”

“Later, Melyaket,” Crassus said. “We are engaged now.”

Even Petronius had an edge to his voice. “Do you see what has happened here, son?”

“Yes
, commander. And I see what is happening here now.”

“I can stand no more of this,” Cassius said. “Alexander, if you do not remove this enemy from my sight, he
can stay and join this one here.” The
quaestor
pointed down the hill.

I expected thunder and lightning from my lord, for Crassus hated to be contradicted in public, but the general merely said, “Perhaps you’d better do as Longinus says, Alexander. It’s not a good time for
Melyaket to be here.”

As we coaxed our horses away from the officers,
Apollonius was being dragged up the hill to be presented to Crassus. A woman, his wife most likely, stumbled after him, wailing. Whatever courage or arrogance that had once filled that rough hewn face had leaked away, leaving wide-eyed panic and terror that confounded his muscles and chalked his once-ruddy cheeks. Soon, his head would be on a pole planted above his burning city’s gates, but worse would come before the end. The woman, if she lived, would be sold with what was left of her people—2,500 men, women and children to be sent back along the lines, their old life gone, their new one hardly deserving of the name. If I stayed long enough in this place, I would be able to watch the reenactment of my beginning as a slave pass before my eyes, including all the appropriate props and participants:  innocents, victims, chains, carts and cages. And Zenodotium was one town, one small engagement.

Orodes would learn what he wanted to know, and his fear would grow.
Crassus had allowed his men a display of ruthlessness, a tactic this Parthian king would find quite reasonable.

Melyaket and I urged our horses down the hillside to the pleading song of
Apollonius’ widow-to-be and made our way past the growing tower of dead legionaries. Just as we were about to pass the bridge that led to the city, we saw Betto and Malchus carrying out one of our own.

“We volunteered,” Betto said to my questioning look. Their rank absolved them from this bitter duty.

“Hold a moment,” I said. “I know this man.” The corpse, his vine stick still neatly tucked inside his belt, was that of the embittered Lucius Vinicius who had chided me on the ramparts when I had met Ludovicus. “This man was
primus pilus
for Legion V. I heard he volunteered for this assignment.”

“More fool he,” Betto said as they lowered the corpse to the ground.

“Give it a rest,” said Malchus.

“He felt he’d been passed over and wanted any job that might lead to promotion. Poor man.”

“That’s a bad death, that is,” said Malchus. “A death without honor.” There were four broken shafts protruding from Vinicius’ stomach and chest.

“Look behind you,” said Betto. “If I were him,
if I were
any
of these boys, while their executioners were pulling back their bowstrings, I’d be praying for vengeance, and right now they’re getting their wish ten times over.”

“Did you hear,” Malchus said, “there’s talk of
acclaiming the general
imperator
.

“I still don’t believe it,” Betto said. “This wasn’t even a battle.”

“Who knows,” Malchus said. “Maybe some of the legates passed the word
down the line to have the men talk it up, you know, to boost the general’s confidence.”

“
Dominus
needs no confidence boosting,” I said.

“Alexander,” Malchus said, “it
has
been a while since he’s been in the field.”

How embarrassing, to be offered this grand accolade for a ‘victory’ as paltry and as vicious as this.
“I sincerely hope he rejects it.”

He didn’t.

Betto said, “We saw your friends while we were inside.”

“You don’t need to
tell me. Herclides and Palaemon.”

“They’
re a disgrace,” said Betto. “I won’t say what we saw them doing; it’s an embarrassment to the uniform.”

“
We should have dealt with them when we had the chance,” said Malchus. “The least they deserve is exile.”

“Or an unfortunate accident,” said Betto.

“Couldn’t you stop them?” I asked.

Malchus looked shame-faced. “They weren’t the only ones,” he said quietly.

“At least we’re not tent-mates,” Betto said, “Now, could we get a move on, please? A little respect for the departed?”

He reached down and made ready to lift the dead centurion up under his arms. “By the way, who’s the native? I like his
baggy trousers.”

I introduced Melyaket to my companions and moved on quickly before Betto said something everyone would regret.
We rode north along the river until the sounds of anguish and vengeance were only a memory, but one that wouldn’t let me be for weeks. We let the horses graze and sat near the bank by bulrushes taller than a man. “You cannot stay,” I said, tossing a stone into waters of molten silver. “After today, no one could guarantee your safety, not even Crassus.”

“It may be so.”

“You shall miss our talks. You could have learned much.”

Melyaket laughed. “I regret I did not have the opportunity to meet your wife.”

“I never told you…ah yes, I forgot, you’re a spy.”

“Men speak of her hair with reverence.”

“She will be pleased to hear that all her years of training have earned her such high regard.

Melyaket shrugged. “It’s true
—good healers are rare, but a color such as that red in this part of the world, what can one say, it borders on the miraculous.”

I was about to say that I had never disclosed that Livia was a healer, but caught myself in time.
We shared some water and bread; I apologized for the horrors we had witnessed.

“You’ve lived too long among these Romans
,” Melyaket said. “You’re not one of them. They won’t
let
you be one of them. As I told you at the races, you should feel angry, not responsible.”

I stared at this young, handsome warrior with the soft, smiling eyes. “I withdraw
the advice I gave you then. You’re quite old enough. No more aging for you.”

“Shh! Be still,” he whispered. Crouching low, Melyaket
crawled to his horse and without a sound removed a wide, leather case, then slid back to me. It held two compartments, one filled with arrows; from the other, he quietly withdrew a bow unlike any I had ever seen. It had far too many curves. As he strung it, he said, “Keep watch across the river, just north of us. Think you can reach the far bank with a stone?”

“Unless you know Palaemon or Herclides by sight, I trust we are not going to kill anyone.”

“I’m ready,” Melyaket said, nocking an arrow. “Aim for that clump of reeds just beyond the bend. Stand up very slowly.” I did as I was told. The stone sailed across the river but fell just short of the other side, making a modest splash just shy of my intended target.

“Ta’us
! They’re running! Quick, up there.” We scrambled up the small incline and scanned the far side of the river, lined with waving grass and reeds, a mirror likeness of our own bank. But for Melyaket’s agitation, the bucolic spot seemed as tranquil and lovely as a garden.

Of a sudden, the Parthian raised his bow and loosed an arrow in a high arc across the river
, at what I had no idea. Before the missile had reached its zenith, he stood ready to fire again. An instant later there was a great commotion on the other side. Half a dozen abnormally large birds flew into view just above the grass. “You’ll never hit one,” I said. “They’re flying away from us.” But Melyaket had already loosed his arrow.

Without waiting to see where it landed, he gathered his things and urged me to do the same. We rode across the river; surprisingly deep for the summer, it rose to our horses’ bellies.

Melyaket had wasted neither arrow. “We call them
mescejn,
flying feast,” he said as we dismounted on the opposite bank. The birds were of mammoth proportions; a marriage between goose and vulture, but twice as large, and with their white, tan and brown markings, twice as beautiful.

“I should say so! They must weigh forty pounds apiece. What marksmanship!”

“The gods allowed us some luck today
, seeing that we part company.” Melyaket tied them together and slung them over Apollo. “A gift for your general.”

“I have nothing for you,” I said.

“I am giving you nothing.”

“Oh, I believe I’ll manage at least one supper
of table scraps from your generosity.”

“Eat well, then. If it makes you happy to give something in return, convince your general to do as I have
told you:  hug the mountains, follow the river, avoid the open plain.” (In the weeks and months that followed, in every meeting of the commanders where heads were bent, not in prayer, but in concentration over the map of Mesopotamia, I repeated the advice of Melyaket puhr Karach. The greatest irony of these discussions of the invasion of King Orodes’ empire was that the legate who voiced the loudest support of the young Parthian’s strategies was Cassius Longinus himself.) 

Melyaket promised he would return when he could.
He told me he would not forsake his charge. I asked him to explain, but his reply was a grin and a scratch for Apollo behind his ear. We shook hands and parted as friends.

Chapter XXXIII

54  BCE   -   Fall, Antioch

Year of the consulship of

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher

Crassus
garrisoned half a dozen towns in Parthian territory with seven thousand legionaries and a thousand cavalry. In September, we headed west and crossed back over the Euphrates to return to Antioch. In the Regia, two welcome sights awaited us:  a packet of letters from Rome, and Publius, arrived early from Gaul. The celebration that night was raucous, overstuffed with meats, wines, braggarts and Celts. Hanno was so upset with Publius for not bringing any chariots with him, he stayed in our room and wouldn’t come out all night. Livia managed to get him to drink some poppy juice with honey and water to settle him down. He slept well into the next morning, just before his unwitting participation in my destruction.

For the occasion,
Livia had piled up her red hair, held high with threads of gold, and she wore a pale green tunic cut of some sheer fabric to whose maker I would always be indebted. At the first opportunity, she and I slipped away to seek out the locked correspondence box on the moonlit gallery table where the heady scent of citron still lingered. We both hoped to hear news of Felix, but more than that, I prayed there might be some plea from lady Tertulla begging her husband to relent from his present course.

“
Are you sure this is all right?” she whispered.

“
I’ve missed you,” I said, searching for the hem at the back of her tunic with my left hand while I fumbled for the key with my right. “Of course it’s all right. It’s my key.” The noise from the banquet hall was a distant echo.

“
Then I guess it’s all right,” she said, and her legs parted ever so slightly. I dropped the key.

Over the next few moments, from a distance
, one would have thought that we were simply two people standing still very close to each other. One would have been mistaken. Out of breath, eyeing the cool expanse of inlaid stone, I said, “A cluttered table is the emblem of a busy mind.”

“Or a cluttered
mind,” Livia said.

“Either way, there’s plenty of room for
us.” Livia had hopped up on the polished surface before I could assist her; in one smooth motion she lay back, bent her elbows, rested her head on her hands, and wrapped her legs about my thighs. There was nowhere else for me to go, and nowhere else I preferred to be. I took hold of her hips and found her. In my haste, she gasped, but nodded fiercely thereafter. Our eyes stayed locked upon one another, even as the slow frenzy of our bodies pulled at us to lose ourselves. We held on, each seeing the other, not letting go, until finally at the end, as rhythm became spasm, I fell into her arms.