At last the carpenters brought long tables and benches to my schoolroom, plus one for me as the master, and a most comfortable chair. With a cushion! The schedule was set: two hours, three times a week the house came under my tutelage, even Livia. Tertulla soon saw that my hours were doubled, easily convincing her friends to send their own servants. Crassus began dropping by late in the day; he found in me his own apt pupil; discussing an invigorating regimen of politics, philosophy and oratory. He never spoke down to me and always gave ear to my remarks with interest and thoughtfulness. He asked questions and invited debate when he could have commanded unilateral acceptance. The omnipresent imbalance of our status never left my consciousness, but it faded to a background noise, like the sound of distant surf. He made me feel valued, and by doing so, let me rediscover my manhood, which had been stripped away like bark from a tree.
Atop Rome’s richest hill, we lived at the cold heart of the world, where distance made everything sparkle, and close inspection was almost never required. Our masters were kind and our bellies full; who among all the bustling, struggling throng below could say as much? We could forget who we were and how we had gotten there. Yes, we were actors playing a part, but every day was dress rehearsal, and with enough practice, we could become the characters we played. The days passed and without even realizing it, the small estate on the Palatine began to feel like a place where I belonged.
All might be well again.
Except that it could never be. Boaz’s Eastern philosophers must have been mistaken. Perhaps there, at the edge of the world, life was more just, but here in Rome, one could never be certain that goodness would be rewarded in kind.
Chapter XII
80 BCE — Summer, Rome Year of the consulship of Marcus Tulius Decula and Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella
Sulla had given up his dictatorship after only a year, having needed only those few months to turn centuries of Roman law inside out. His enemies, allies of Cinna and Marius, were either dead or exiled. He had had himself elected consul along with his friend Metellus, but even that was a sham: he had been dictator in all but name. No one dared dispute his “reforms,” most of which shored up the aristocracy and eviscerated the plebian council, whose power to thwart the senate was neatly castrated. Ironically, it would be under the consulship of Crassus and Pompeius ten years hence that most of Sulla’s legislative upheavals would be overturned.
Eventually, Sulla must have tired of staring at his bloodstained hands, for there was one nineteen year-old member of the populares who none could believe the new master of Rome would ever let slip through his sticky fingers. Recently married to Calpurnia, the daughter of Cinna himself, he was near the top of the proscription lists. This friend of Marius fled to the countryside while his supporters and family petitioned clemency. Sulla was somehow swayed and lifted the sentence of death, but only upon condition that the lad divorce the daughter of his hated enemy. In an act some would call reckless, others insane, the insolent, headstrong rebel refused. The gods clearly had grand plans for this impudent Julius Caesar, for only they could have stayed Sulla’s outstretched hand of clemency from returning to its more accustomed role as wielder of the executioner’s blade. He relented, but warned those that had lobbied for clemency: “in this one Caesar, you will find many a Marius.” History would prove that it was Sulla, not Marius, that Caesar would eventually emulate, and unlike Sulla, Caesar would not tire of the role of dictator.
Rome, then, had settled into an uneasy peace. Not so the house of Crassus. Up from its chthonic bonds beneath the Palatine, Hades was about to break, and it was a damned soul once named Alexandros who had already unlocked the Gates.
If Nestor had had any faith at all in his master, it never would have happened. Crassus would not dream of willingly causing harm to the man who had sustained him those many months in hiding while Marius and Cinna hunted for him. But Nestor left our dominus no choice. It was hot on the Kalends of Quintilis. All the doors had been opened, the curtains pulled back and a dozen fan-bearers rented from Boaz. Sabina had taken Livia to town to restock her rapidly dwindling supply of herbs and ointments. I had just finished the afternoon’s last class in Latin grammar. The inside door to the front garden was open; so too the door to the street which I normally left bolted to discourage prying eyes and dampen street noise. Today the need for cross-ventilation bested privacy.
I looked up at the lesson wall, sweating like a Thracian wrestler. The layers of whitewash cried out for a good scraping and a fresh coat of paint, but it was just too damn hot. Happy with my procrastination, I had grabbed my bag of scrolls from the teaching table and taken two steps toward the street-side door in order to shut it when two men stepped through the opening into the schoolroom.
“Salve,” I said. “If you’re looking for the front entrance, it’s the gate just after the next door down the street.” I am pitifully unworldly, for one look at these two and anyone else would have known they would never come a-calling on any establishment other than a brothel, a tavern or a barn.
“Tall and skinny,” one said to the other.
“Must be the one,” said the other. “What’s your name, then?” They stepped closer and I took a step back. It is laughable how good manners so often interfere with my survival. My sluggish instincts had finally flashed a warning, but rather than run from the room screaming for help, I hesitated. What if my apprehension was unfounded? How rude it would be for me to flee. Decorum demanded that I give them the benefit of the doubt.
“Alexandros,” I said, swallowing. “Whom do you seek?”
“What, not Alexander?” The two looked puzzled and stopped their slow advance.
“You a teacher?” asked the second ruffian in a veritable lightening bolt of inspiration. My parents taught me never to lie. I nodded, my knuckles white on the edge of the table.
They looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Close enough.” Each drew an iron dagger from his belt, and my wits finally connected with my mouth and I cried out for help. I couldn’t take my eyes off the knives, so rather than turning to run I backed up, immediately tripping over one of the low benches. I landed up against the wall right next to the inside doorway, the air knocked out of my lungs, the overturned bench up against my feet. As I gasped for breath they advanced, the taller one tossing the knife between his left hand and his right, back and forth. The two men stepped over the bench at the same time.
I kicked out with both feet. The shorter one, the one on my left, tripped and slammed head first into the wall. He cursed and rolled away out of my line of sight, but the other one was lighter on his feet. He hopped neatly over the skidding bench and crouched by my side. The few teeth in his smile were not many shades lighter than his knife blade.
He gave me no time to plead for my life or even cry out. He was smiling, but he knew what he was about; do the job and leave. The other man called out, quite unnecessarily, “Do him, Quintus, and let’s fly.”
The knife was in Quintus’s right hand; he must have been left-handed for he flipped it across his chest one last time to wield the blade where it was most comfortable. While it was still in mid-air, a half-eaten apple sailed threw the open doorway and hit him hard in the face. Close behind it came a blur of Betto and obscenities. The dagger clattered to the floor as our legionary flew at the bigger man. They crashed to the ground then scrambled away from each other, but the assassin had somehow come up wielding his knife. Circling round the room till they were side by side again came his partner, his own weapon drawn.