Free A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven by Andrew Levkoff

Minucius Valens, dressed like the rest of us in inconspicuous tunic and cloak, prodded Betto from behind. “Move smartly, Betto. The girls are waiting.”
    “May I assist you, Flavius?” I asked, trying to be helpful.
    “I’ve got it,” he said, yanking his baldric across his shoulder.
    “That’s why Betto can’t get laid without reaching for a few coins,” Valens said. “Under the coverlet, his girlfriends keep asking the same thing.” He sang in high-pitched mimicry of an annoyed woman, “‘May I assist you, Flavius.’ He never could figure out where to put it! Maybe you’ll have better luck with your gladius , but it looks like the only thing you’ll penetrate with that sword is your scabbard!” Valens, a stocky man no taller than Betto, but thick of arms, chest and wit, thought his jest hilarious.
    “You’ve missed your calling, Minucius,” Betto replied calmly. “With the amount of pigeon shit coming out of your mouth, you’d have made a superb ornatrix , bleaching the hair of dainty ladies.” Valens stopped laughing, and the rest of us did our best not to start.
    “Gentlemen,” I said, looking pointedly at Minucius Valens. “There will be no time for fraternization. We make the delivery to the tribune and return as quickly as possible.”
    I did not know Valens well; he had been among Crassus' guards for a year at least, but there were just so many servants in dominus’ employ, it was impossible to know everyone on a personal level. Not so Drusus Quintilius Malchus and Flavius Salvius Betto. I had known these two estimable characters ever since coming to the house of Crassus.
    Malchus’ calm and sage counsel had seen me through many a difficult night in my first frightened and perturbed days in servitude. He poured home-grown cold reason on my overheated despair:  a slave I was, but in Rome, there were slaves, and then there were the slaves of Crassus. I should make offerings, he had said, to whatever gods or goddesses who watched over me that I had washed up on this patrician’s shore. From the look of me when first I was brought to the auction block, I would not have lasted a week had I been sold to one of the big farms, or the mines, or any one of a thousand crueler masters. I was one of the lucky ones, he had said, and I had better learn to be content with my lot.
    It was true, Malchus had been lean and lanky in those frantic days, just like me, but after a year living the softer life of a guard at the Crassus residence, the man who had helped acclimate me to my fate had been thoroughly consumed by his consumption. I had never seen anyone so in love with food. Because of his height, he could not be called ‘fat,’ but the man had become big . To those that called him ‘friend,’ and there were many, he was known as Malchus the Mighty. But he was gentle and kind, and his calm was almost impossible to penetrate.
    Then there was wiry, fretful Betto. He, unlike Malchus, was democratic in pothering equally over every matter, whether large or small. But he was fierce and loyal, and once, not long after my arrival as a newly-minted slave, he had saved my life. The two friends had joined up with Crassus to help Sulla defeat Marius. They were rarely out of each other’s sight. This, though they were almost constantly in disagreement. Betto was river to Malchus’ riverbed. They gave each other form and direction; one without the other would make the world a little less tolerable.
    •••
    Romans are always at war with somebody. The one that eventually brought Malchus and Betto into the welcoming arms of Marcus Crassus and my grateful company was known as The War of the Allies. Slaughter, when given a name, sounds so much more palatable, digestible. No bloodstained, breathless participant, I can assure you, ever stopped to consider what sobriquet history might bestow upon the present melee while he was in the thick of it.
    This particular conflagration had been smoldering for decades,