Andrew Levkoff
A Mixture of Madness
"No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness."
Preface
55 — 54 BCE — Winter, On the March
Year of the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives
“Bona Dea! What was that?!” Legionary Flavius Betto sat up, shoving Drusus Malchus awake. Betto, whose tent-mates called him Muris, the mouse, set to work upon a hangnail as if he were breaking his fast.
“It was a scream,” Malchus said, yawning and stretching. “You’re a soldier. We’re at war. You’ll hear lots of screaming. Go back to sleep.” The four other soldiers in the tent agreed with short, vehement curses. The Celt threw a bronze mess cup at Betto but hit Malchus. Betto was lucky the two remaining members of their contubernium, the brothers Broccus, were on guard duty.
Malchus casually tossed the cup back toward its owner. He was philosophical about these things. People were often throwing things at Betto, and his friend Malchus, being so much the greater target, took his share of unintentional abuse. He was the only man in his century who could not wear standard issue. It would be unfair to call him fat, and more unkind than unwise. Hostus Broccus had once said that if they were ever shipwrecked together, they could make a raft of his body and a sail from his tunic. Hearing this, Tarautus Broccus had pressed a finger to one broad nostril, leaned over and emptied the other with a sharp exhale. Broccus had wiped his face on his tunic, then said he’d rather swim for it than lie on Malchus’ naked chest. Drusus had laughed along with everyone else.
“It wasn’t a scream,” Betto argued. “It sounded more like…like the moaning of my Aunt Iunia.”
“You told me she died from eating bad mullet year before last.”
“My point exactly.” Betto began to reach for the tent flap, then thought better of it.
“It was a scream,” Malchus muttered, knowing this was an argument he would not win. He pulled his brown wool sagum all the way up over his head, wondering if he could fall back asleep before the next sentence was uttered.
“How could it be a scream?” Betto asked the woolen lump that was his best friend. “Have you looked outside? We’re in Roman Syria, not Ctesiphon. The fighting hasn’t started yet.”
“It will if you don’t shut up!” said the Etruscan.
“That’s it. I’m wide awake now,” Malchus grumbled. He threw off his cloak, leaned forward and peered through the tent flap. “The blessed cornu will blow within the hour anyway.”
“It’s another omen, I know it,” warned Betto, peering over Malchus’ shoulder.
“Oh, here we go again,” said someone else.
“You think I’m joking?” Betto said. “Tell me, how did Malchus and I come to join you fine fellows? I’ll tell you how.” Someone muttered “again,” but Betto plowed ahead. “Because the six other legionaries we shipped out with drowned, that’s how! Remember the men who stood on the rostra with us in Brundisium? Well now they’re DEAD!”
“And here you are in the first century of the first cohort of Legion I Columba,” said the Celt, throwing his tunic over his head.
The Etruscan muttered, “Columba. Why name an army after a bird of peace? The Dove Army-about as threatening as a kiss on the cheek.”
“Ever have 30,000 doves shit on you?” Malchus asked.
The Celt continued unperturbed, “Under whose standard march the best legionaries Marcus Crassus’ sesterces can buy. So I suggest you start acting like it.”
“It’s been almost five months, Flavius,” Malchus said. “You need to let it go. You’re driving everyone crazy.”
“You don’t understand,” Betto persisted. “Thousands of men drowned. I don’t suppose you call that a good omen, do you?”
“Think on it, my superstitious friend,” Malchus said, “there is a reason the gods gave you a mouth that closes and ears that don’t.” This got a laugh from the others, who had now resigned themselves to being well awake by the time Diana’s Hymn sounded.
“Scoff if you want,” Betto said. “But between the tribune’s curse and the ill wind that took our brothers, I’d say someone in the command tent isn’t praying hard enough.”
A voice in the dark said, “The proper sacrifices were made to Neptune and Tempestates. The legion’s augur confirmed our crossing at that inopportune time has been absolved. There’s an end to it.”
“There’s an end to it, all right,” Betto groused. “If by ‘it’ you mean us.” He joined the others and started dressing. At least his pre-dawn nerves, Malchus told him cheerfully, would enable them to beat the morning rush to the latrine.
“This is not the way. We’re in the wrong wing! Give me that!” I seize the torch from the slave. “See my atriensis in the morning and instruct him to flog you. Ask for Alexander. Now be gone!” Athena, protect me-not here again. Not again, I beg you.
I point the sputtering torch down a dark hallway and see that it is too short to be my own. In the dark, they all look alike. The spirits of a house come alive at night. Torchlight sets them free. Too many columns. Too many shadows. No one about. Even the slaves are abed. I’m drunk. How can I be drunk and dreaming?
Luca.
They say the entrance to Hades is at Avernus, but for me it lies here, somewhere in this house. No matter where I walk, in the end, the torture of the pit awaits me. I’m so tired. If I could but sleep a dreamless sleep. Come nightmare, do thy worst and let me rest. I hurry now past columns that throw grasping shadow arms. There is the garden atrium, rain splashing into the impluvium and blowing spray in gusts over the slick tile floor. I slip on a wet spot and fall to my knees. The torch skids, hits a clay planter head-on and goes out with a hiss and a small explosion of sparks.
That is the sign. I am close now. I get to my feet and grope along the walls until finally, I hear a woman’s voice, low and urgent. It doesn’t sound like my wife. More words, then a grunt as if someone has been struck. I draw my pugio from its scabbard for the hundredth time, swearing that this time I will plunge it into the traitor’s neck. I make my way down the hall, past two empty cubiculae. I squint at a wall painting, recognize the image of Orpheus and Eurydice, the viper curled around her ankle. Now it comes.
Knowledge spurs me not to greater speed, but turns my feet to stone. They scrape on the stone floor as I drag myself forward, my mind silently screaming, ‘Awaken! Awaken!’
The cubiculum has no door, and the heavy drapes that separate it from the hallway are partially drawn. I peer past the curtains. The room is dark, and I can hear more than I can see. The rhythmic grunts of the man in the room are occasionally echoed by a woman’s groan, whether in pain or pleasure I cannot tell. There is also the intermittently rhythmic thump of a chest of drawers as it is knocked up against a wall.
Forms begin to be discernible out of the murk. Two bodies face the wall, leaning over the waist high wooden chest. A man whose head is turned away from the doorway has his tunic pulled up above his waist and stuffed into his belt. His pale, exposed buttocks moves in a short arc, up and down, like comic moons unsure whether to rise or set. I can see the prominent bald spot on the back of Caesar’s head as he hunches over my wife’s right shoulder.
“Haste, Julius,” she says, “or my husband will discover how boring you are.” Her last word turns into a grunt as Caesar responds with a vicious thrust that practically lifts Tertulla off her feet. I gag as I always do. Does she mock him, or encourage him? I can never tell. The left shoulder of her tunic is torn. Did she struggle? Or is this more evidence of their ardor? I know as I follow the slender line of her bare arms, up to her shaking shoulders, past her neck and the ringlets of hair that half obscure her cheeks, that whenever I force myself to gaze just a little higher, I will find that she is looking straight into my eyes.