Other Alexander, The (6 page)

Dumbstruck, I stood staring at the closed door. “What just happened?” I turned toward Sabina, but she had fled. Betto, the young door guard was standing at his post, fussing with a strap on his leather breastplate. “Who was that?” I asked.

“Boaz. A Jew,” he said, his head bent in concentration over the lacings. As if that explained anything.

“And?”

Betto looked up at me, irritated. “He has a contract with the house.” I had no idea what he was talking about. “Boaz is our slave merchant,” he said as if talking to one of those pitiful god-touched souls wandering aimlessly through the stalls of the Subura market. He spoke in sharp-edged barbs of rising inflection. “He owns the girl. She was only here on a rental.”

•••

Earlier in the day Sabina had shown me where I would be sleeping from now on. It was near the end of the servants’ hallway; a small room right next to Pío’s much larger quarters. I limped there now, stung, numb and so very tired. It was very dark and I had to feel my way. Pulling the curtain aside I saw absolutely nothing. I had to stand there for a few moments until my eyes regained some of their sight. There was a shape on one of the two sleeping couches. Nestor faced the wall; I could not tell if he was asleep or feigning; either way I doubt he wanted to engage in conversation. Fine by me. A narrow table stood between the beds; trunks sat at the foot of each. That was all. There was barely a foot between the two couches. No window. No ornamentation. Home.

I undressed and slipped beneath the heavy blanket. Sleep would not come. I tossed like a beached fish, stared at the ceiling and replayed all that had transpired that day. Finally, I decided my foul mood needed company. “Nestor,” I whispered. No response. I tried again, louder this time. And a third, louder still.

He whipped around to face me. “What do you want?” he hissed. “Are you crazy? Do you know the time?”

“To talk. No. Yes.”

“Leave me alone.” His tone sounded more frantic than was called for by the occasion.

“Yes. No.”

“You
are
insane. The master should lock you away and make you eat hellebore leaves till you come to your senses.”

“Why did you not acknowledge me earlier today? I thought you would be happy to see me.”

“This is
my
home.
My
position. I asked for it first. I don’t need you.”

“Well, we won’t go into the manner of your ‘asking,’ beyond acknowledging that shoving me out of the way was a rude and inelegant gesture from one Greek compatriot to another. Be resigned, Nestor, I am here. I am not your enemy. We can help each other.”

“Really?”

“Yes! We are fellow countrymen. Does that not count for something?”

“Did it count for anything when we were in chains? Did we ever pass so much as a word between us in all those many months? No, it doesn’t count for anything, not then, not now.”

I was not expecting such chastisement. All the more scathing for its accuracy. “Forgive me, Nestor. You are right. Those were difficult times.”

“The only difference now is a bit more food and a bit less mud. Now let me be.”

I awoke some time later lying on my side facing Nestor’s bed. It was empty. From the room next door came again the sound that had roused me – a couch scraping on the floor. There it was again, then two men talking. No, not talking. I rolled over and tried to wrap the long, narrow sleeping pillow over both my ears.

Chapter VIII

82 - 81 BCE   -   Winter, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Gaius Marius the Younger and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo

It was late the next morning. None of the family had come out yet; the house was oddly quiet. No one was wearing their
pileus
except Betto, the guard, but he was doing it as a joke. I had just finished translating cook’s instructions for the evening’s meal when Sabina came into the
culina
. She beckoned me to follow her outside into the garden. Cook flapped his permission with the cloth he used to battle the permanent film of perspiration on his forehead. Limping to my room as fast as I could, I grabbed my only cloak and met her outside. A bright sun was burning the dew away.

Swiping a hand across the marble bench where she stood waiting, I sent a small wave of condensation onto the dead grass. I laid the cloak across the veined stone and we sat watching the steam rise off the artificial pond. “I’m sorry,” Sabina said after a short while.

“This is a terrible place.” I kept still, letting her take her time.

She was not quite ready, but skirted close. “Livia is quite fond of you, you know. She told me she likes embarrassing you.”

“An unremarkable feat, easily accomplished. Only yesterday we were practicing the finer points of how to butcher a boar. Cook was demonstrating, I was translating. The staff laughed at every word I spoke; puzzling, since I could not imagine a subject less humorous. The more they laughed, the angrier I became. How dare they humiliate an invalid with a cane? I chastised them sternly, wagging a finger at their disrespect; the laughter became uproarious. A noise from behind caught my attention; I turned to discover your daughter standing there barefoot, wearing an old brown wig, holding two long sticks with stuffed, white gloves attached to each end. She had snuck up behind me to pantomime everything I did."

“I heard all about it."

"I glared at her, but my heart wasn't in it. She grinned sheepishly and waved at me with one of her 'hands.' It really was quite funny. Even cook laughed.”

"For one so young, you are very good with children. Marcus, too. I know you’ve been teaching Livia Latin.”

“She’s a fast learner. If only we had more time.”

Damn myself for a fool. I had inadvertently broken the spell. For a moment, we might have been mistaken for two companions enjoying the morning air. “I have not been honest with you,” she said.

“You owe me no explanations.”

“I feel that I do.” She bent to pick up a pebble, then tossed it underhand into the pond. “We seem to have become friends, haven’t we? Not an easy accomplishment.” She sighed. “I was ashamed, Alexandros. To confess to you that my station was no better than yours. I thought I would be free, and Livia with me; that I would be gone from this place. Such an insult to you!” She turned to face me. “Can you forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive. You have only shown me kindness. You and Livia have been the only brightness to shine upon me in years. The real tragedy is to learn that you and your daughter are not free.”

“They will be looking for us soon. I must tell you quickly.”

“You don’t have to say a thing. Come, let us go in.” I started to rise but she caught my arm.

“No. I must do this.” She steeled herself. “I was pregnant when we married. He was Roman, a soldier for Marius. It wasn’t a formal ceremony, we weren’t citizens, but we were free and it was legal – he walked me to our apartment with a few of his legionary friends to bear witness. I wore the flame-colored veil and the amaracus wreath. I was such a romantic. My parents were dead, and he was estranged from his. A clue which I completely ignored.”

“What was his name?”

“I won’t speak it. Soon after we were married, it became clear his love for me paled beside his passion for gambling. He was obsessed by the chariot races;  whenever the cheers from the Circus Maximus echoed through the city, he would disappear, probably with those same men who had followed us to our threshold. I didn’t notice the losses at first; he didn’t confide in me. And honestly, I was so wrapped up in my daughter, I wasn’t paying attention. I had never been so happy.” I nodded. “I suppose that’s why two years ago when I came back from the market and he gave me the news, I fainted. See this scar?” She leaned toward me; I saw a thin white ripple just below the hairline near her left temple. “I fell and cracked my head. When I got up a few moments later, blood was seeping between my fingers; he steadied me and put me in a chair. I brushed him away and made him speak again so I would know I had not misheard him. He spoke slowly, defeat and regret coating every word. To pay his debts, he said, he had been forced to sell our daughter. I looked around frantically, realizing we were alone. I screamed at him, ‘Where is she?!’ but she was already gone.”

“I cannot bear this,” I said.

“I would have killed him then, had I been able. His gladius was in the corner and I ran for it, but blood was getting in my eye and I tripped.”

“Please, Sabina, let’s go inside.”

“Some head wounds look far worse than they are,” she continued. Her eyes were focused on a sight I could not behold, on the memory being reborn as she spoke it. “If only I could have killed him,” she said wistfully, “none of this would have happened.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That man tried to bandage me, but I preferred to bleed rather than have him touch me. He boasted he had gone to the forum to find the most reputable of merchants. It was Boaz. By the darkest sorcery, Livia, my flesh and my heart, had been transformed into a lifeless pile of cold, worthless coins. He tried to explain how well off we were; showed me the money that would be left after he paid off his creditors. Even tried to put the coins in my hand – the equivalent of 4,000
sesterces
in forty small gold
aureii
. 12,000
sesterces
for my daughter to pay 8,000 in debts. He gambled away almost nine years’ wages. The sorry bastard I married had only served for ten.”

“How could he get so much money on a soldier’s wage?”

“Where do you think? Over half of it was mine; money I’d saved working as a healer. Foolishly I thought my girlish love would pave the road to infinite trust. I gave him the money to manage. The rest he must have borrowed. A clever snail, he was, I’ll give him that. He put a false bottom in the small money chest that held our savings. When he needed to take out more than the 925
sesterces
he was putting in each month, he’d raise the floor to make the level of coins look unchanged. That’s how he stole from us.

“He actually thought he was being noble, giving me charge of all that gold. But he left me with but a third of what I would need to buy Livia back, and that was only if Boaz would make the exchange profitless. I took the coins, cupped them in my hands and spit on them. Then I flung them in his face as hard as I could. I cut him, and hit him in one eye, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Within the hour he had left to rejoin his legion. I never saw him again.

“That night I awoke with a start and lit a candle. I crawled on the floor till I had collected every
aureus
. I put them in our water bucket and the next day bought another one slightly smaller. I broke the staves and set them aside, muffled the coins with a rag, pressed them into the false bottom and calked it.”

“Your husband’s trick in reverse. Ingenious.”

“Then I put it under the basin stand and prayed to our house god to keep it safe. I kneeled by our hearthside
lararium
till the flames became embers. My prayers twisted into thoughts of how I might undo my husband’s betrayal and reclaim my daughter. I awoke on the floor, cold and alone.

“My biggest regret is that the man did not die that day, for while he lived, my fate worsened. I was taking work anywhere I could find it:  baking pies to sell to the troops, sewing, anything. I starved myself trying to save every
as
. But it was taking too long. It would take forever. Then Sulla marched on Rome. My husband was among those defending the gates.

“Four months ago, two men came to my door. They weren’t his friends, and they weren’t soldiers. They showed me the leather bag from his kit. It bore the mark he had carved on the flap. There was a large tear on the front that went through to the other side. Dark stains made their meaning clear.”

“Shall I offer condolences?”

“I wouldn’t accept them. Anyway, he was killed, but not before he had gone into debt again. I was so stupid; legionaries, whoring, gambling – just different names for the same word. Those men had come to collect. They showed me the contract; his mark was on it, there was no denying it. And they knew about the forty
aureii
. I tried to stop them, but they came in and found the hiding place within minutes. I thought I had been clever, but they had experience. We save anything that might be reused – I never discarded the broken staves; they found them in my trunk.”

“But how had they found you?”

“Before the battle my husband must have told them he had given me the money. I hope they tortured him.”

“Why do you insist on calling him ‘husband?’ It borders on profanity.”

“I do it with purpose. He
was
my husband. Our marriage was not arranged. I chose him, Minerva help me. Livia is gone because I could not govern her father. I call him ‘husband’ to remind me.”

“If you hadn’t chosen him,” I said quietly, “she would not have been born.”

“She would have been better off.” Her tears came now.

“You cannot think so.”

“I can. And do. Look at the world I have given her.”

“It was never yours to give.”

“I am her mother. I am responsible.”

“You are not a goddess, Sabina. If every bride stopped to think upon the odds of their family’s future, there would soon be none left to risk the vows. You can only do so much.”

“Say what you will. I have not done enough.”

I wanted to find more words of comfort but did not know where to look. They were not within me, of that I was certain. Her story had made me feel like a scoured gourd.

“You do not yet know the worst of it,” she said wiping her eyes and composing herself. “The forty in gold was not enough to settle this new debt – he owed four thousand
sesterces
beyond what those men stole from me. My loving husband’s estate, his gift to me upon his death,” she said bitterly.

It took me a moment to digest this new information. Suddenly, it dawned on me. “Tell me you did not do this thing.”

She glanced at me, then away. “I did. I went to the slave merchants’ quarter. I found three, but none would give me more than two thousand
sesterces
. Pretty young girls fetch so much more than mothers in their thirties. Finally, I found Boaz. He was not hard to locate; he supplies the finest houses in the city. I was wrong about him. He tried to talk me out of it; getting in, he said, is so much easier than getting out. For me, the choice was simple. In the end, he gave me twice what I was worth – four thousand
sesterces
. I was his for less than a week, then he resold me to the house of Crassus.”

Sabina, indentured by her own hand. Such love and sacrifice; how I envied her steel-edged purpose. And how I despised this life! “But your healing skills, surely they were worth a premium?”

“I may not be voluptuous and my hair may be cropped close, but I should like to think I have not fallen so far that a buyer would mistake me for a man. Most Romans insist that included among their doctors’ salves and instruments one may also find a pair of balls.”

I laughed, or tried to. “Then why did Crassus take you on, if not to use your skills?”

“As a wet nurse for the baby.”

“Then your debt to your husband’s creditors is paid.”

“In full.”

“Which leaves you?”

“A little more than half of what I sold myself to Boaz for:  twenty-three hundred
sesterces
. It’s not as bad as it seems. He has taken pity on me, Hera knows why. If I can but raise a total of eight thousand
sesterces
, he will sell her back to me when he can and take the loss.”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“Who knows? I never stopped to question him, only to fall to my knees to kiss the hem of his robe. Are not all men sons?”

“I hated him when I saw him take her away.”

“There are many things to hate in this city. This man should not be counted among them.”

I found that hard to believe; how could you not despise such a person? Every new admission of Sabina’s gave me more to ponder. "Perhaps he is fond of you."

"I have no interest in men."

"But if he were, might he not free your daughter himself?"

"Do you think I have not begged him? There are contracts; leases with clients for ... for Livia ... which he must honor. She must be available a certain number of days each month."

"When do they expire?"