Crassus. Very bad memories began blooming like the sewers backing up when the Tiber overflowed its banks. I grunted-the distant Alexandros had begun walking closer at a frighteningly brisk pace.
“See what you’ve done,” said another voice, deeper than Melyaket’s. “Let him be.”
“Here,” Melyaket said, forcing a bitter liquid into my mouth. “Your healer is not the only one who knows how to extract juice from the poppy.”
I had many questions, but I also wanted very much for that other Alexandros to go away.
“Eight days!” I cried. “Where is Livia?” My swaddling had been removed and I was dressed as they were, in plain tunic and belted baggy pants. I could sit up on my own, even walk to the water and back to my place by the palm.
“Surrounded by seven Roman legions,” Melyaket said, “the safest place she can be. They’ll march from Antioch before the last almond flowers have fallen.”
“He’s very poetic, isn’t he,” Hami said, eating a dried plum. Hami was as tall as I, but broad and powerfully built. His head was completely shaved. Like Melyaket, he looked to be in his early twenties.
“Rhapsodical,” I replied, “but what does he mean, and where are they going?”
“Hierapolis, end of Aprilis,” Hami said.
“I must go to her.”
“That way,” Hami said. He spit a seed westward.
“Alexandros,” Melyaket said, “you are in no condition to travel, least of all back there. Think about it.”
I did think about it, and realized I had something else to say. “Thank you.”
“I should have been there sooner.” Gently, he rested a hand on my bruised shoulder. “I only expected one or two guards.”
Hami smiled and said, “Sorry you had to wait, but coming to me for help was the first smart thing this one’s done since we left Sinjar.”
Melyaket bowed gracefully toward his friend, then said to me, “As if he would recognize ‘smart.’ I have something for you.” He ran to his horse and returned with a scroll and a red purse tied with gold threads. He held them out to me, but I took the letter from him first.
Pelargós,
You are alive. Don’t scold me for restating the obvious-that has been the only thought in my head since dominus summoned me. He told me you were taken from the cross by a Parthian raiding party. I don’t know why you were saved or by whom, but whoever they are, I will kiss their feet in gratitude when we meet.
The gulf that separates us now is as wide as death from life. Dominus will not release me, and you cannot return: if I die in the war, Crassus will free Felix. Like you, I must discover how to become a living ghost, then we will find a way for the three of us to be together again. We will cross this divide, I swear. Look for me.
Livia
“I don’t understand. How did you come by this?” I asked.
“The same way I got this.” Melyaket opened the pouch and dropped my heavy gold phalera and its purple ribbon into my hand. Almost in shock, I ran my thumb over the etched likenesses of Crassus and myself; turned it over and saw the enigmatic riddle which still meant nothing to me.
“Dominus?” I asked incredulously.
“General Crassus said for me to tell you, ‘guard it well, you might have need of it.’”
“Let me see that,” Hami said, grabbing it out of my hands. “Look at this-‘Alexandros, beloved of Crassus. Harm him, harm me.’ What a hypocrite!”
“Did he give you my slave disk?” I asked Melyaket.
“He gave me only what you see.”
Hami said, “Why are you still calling him dominus? You’re with us now, Alexandros. You’re free! Mithra’s bloody bull! I saw with my own eyes what they did to you, what he did to you. How can you speak of Crassus with anything but hatred?”
“Hami,” said Melyaket. He sounded exasperated. “How many times do I have to go through this? Crucifixion was the only way the general could save Alexandros’ life.”
Suddenly, a dream flitted across my consciousness-a man on a skittish horse.
“So he was doing Alexandros a favor?” Hami said. “I suppose that Roman who was about to slice off his thumb was doing him a favor, too.”
“I understand,” I said. “Melyaket is right, Hami. My crimes were punishable by death in any number of ways. Crassus could have had me beheaded or had a sword thrust down my spine. He could have ordered a scourging and nails for the crucifixion, but he didn’t. He wanted me to survive, to give you as much time as possible to rescue me.” How the solution must have satisfied him-vicious and kind in the same, clever stroke. Too harsh a parting, Crassus, too harsh.
Cut from the umbilicus of Marcus Crassus after 32 years, I was newborn, dressed in foreign garb, among new friends, heading to a new destiny. The general and his son, men I no longer knew, would soon march on Hierapolis and Jerusalem. I grieved for the Marcus Licinius Crassus of my younger days, the student of Aristotle, the orator, the rhetorician, the kind father, the adoring husband. That man was gone, yet enough of him remained to enlist the aid of Melyaket to engineer my escape. It was regrettable that my master’s magnanimity first required me to weep, cursing death for a coward. Though I have made lukewarm attempts at the urging of others, I have never been able to bring myself to despise him.
As a slave, I had always complained that I existed in a world without choice. It was a fine excuse to wash my hands of life. What were self-responsibility and self-reliance to me? I was allowed no self-Crassus set the limits of my world, and I was safe within them. I had never had to fight for anything-now I had never felt so powerless, or more alone.
Somewhere across the desert, Livia carried on without me. Melyaket, Hami and I would make our way to the fortress at Hatra. When we got there, I would be on the wrong side of the Euphrates.
I have fallen asleep yet again. Another exasperating interruption from the completion of my work. I smell the sea and feel a stripe of hot sun lying across my bald dome. I don’t remember putting this pillow beneath my head. I hate being coddled. I sit up and roll the kinks from my neck. Citrus and bergamot perfume the warm, unruffled air. But here’s a welcome surprise! She has placed a fresh bowl of figs and a cup of honeyed wine on the table, an island oasis amidst the unruly seas of my scrolls.
Livia knows how I crave figs.