Alexander
Alexander Flavius Artorius Ambrosianus, son of Artorius and Ambrosia, born in 9 A.D., becomes immortal through an act of grace and vision at the age of 24. Alexander is a healer, who wants to help any living being to live free of pain and anxiety. He uses a mortar and pestle to create concoctions to relieve symptoms of his patients. He is six feet, two inches tall with blond hair and green eyes. His presence is likened to that of a Greek god.
Soul complement: Ginevra
Supernatural ability: keen vision, sometimes even through solid objects and into people’s souls. Also, at time a seer of the future.
Greatest fear: the dark
Greatest virtue: fairness, justice
Greatest vice: jealousy
Soul complement: Ginevra
Supernatural ability: keen vision, sometimes even through solid objects and into people’s souls. Also, at time a seer of the future.
Greatest fear: the dark
Greatest virtue: fairness, justice
Greatest vice: jealousy
Excerpts of Interviews by Daniel Lockheart
Tell us about your childhood.
I was six when I came to live at Caeruleus with my father and Lucas and the rest of the family. My mother, Ambrosia, had died. I didn’t see how I would live without her. We had lived alone in Athens with our two servants, Tallyrus and Mazra. Our house was nice but small.
My mother was beautiful with yellow hair, long enough to cover her like a shawl, and blue eyes, the color of the evening sky. She talked to me all the time. While she was cooking, or embroidering, or weaving. I went with her everywhere. To the market, to the temple.
She explained everything to me. Sometime I knew what she was saying before she said it. I thought that was because I knew her so well. She often took food or herbs to people who were sick; sometimes we would visit old people to take them porridge. She said she had plenty and wanted to share it. She taught me about flowers and plants. She helped me nurse animals. Sometimes I had ideas about what was wrong with the animals and even sometimes the people. It was like I would “see” their bodies, inside, and know where it was inflamed or if something was growing in them or if a bone was weak; I thought everyone had this gift.
My mother went to the temple most days to pray for my father, Artorius. She did not see him more than three or four times a year, but he wrote her, and me, letters. She read them to me. They were about his travels, his children, and of the races. He, like Lucas, loved horses, but more he liked the sport. I knew so much about him from the letters because my mother read them over and over and often aloud to me.
He sent her money, and we wanted for nothing. I was learning to read and to write back to him. Just a line or two in her letters to him. I liked being with my mother, and I did not like it when I was sent to school, but my father insisted. But it was only a few hours a day.
I always knew when my father would come to visit, even before my mother told me. When he came to visit, he spent all his time with my mother and with me. He taught me to ride. He told me the parts of the horse—the fetlock, the forelock—and he talked about bits and reins and illnesses of horses and what to do about it. He talked about his best racers and how someday Lucas would be and maybe I would be one too.
The idea of racing did not appeal to me and I would say, “I would rather take care of the horses,” and he would say, “Then you be the veterinarian.” And my mother would say, “Or a doctor. Helping people is a noble calling.”
Sometimes she had headaches and I would put my hands on her head and she would say it helped. Or Mazra, our cook, had arthritis in her hands and I would hold them and she would be able to use them better. When I touched someone, if I wanted to help them, my hands would tingle and burn.
My mother and my father were scrolls of information and they liked sharing with me what they knew. It seemed my whole life was her, and him, and Tallyrus and Mazra, our servants. I seldom played with other children.
I suppose we would have had horses but my mother wouldn’t. She liked where we lived and there was no place to have a horse. We were close to the marketplace and the temple and what more did we need? she would say.
I was quiet. I never had to ask questions because I was told everything. My mother seemed to know my thoughts and answered them before I had to ask, even as I often knew hers. Even when my father came, I seldom talked. I got a lot of attention but I never had to ask for a thing. It was idyllic.
I never thought it would change. There was nothing more in the world that I needed. I thought I would grow up there with her, but when I was six, it changed. My mother was going to have a baby; she talked about it to me from the beginning and I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to share her. She hoped it was a boy because she thought that would make my father happy. When we went to the temple, she prayed for my father’s safety and health and I prayed that I would not have to share my mother with another child. I did not know the alternative; I simply wanted the other child to dissolve away and not be.
When my mother was near her time, my father came to stay. He was just as excited as she was about the baby. She was large and was having a hard time walking around. Her ankles were swollen; her breath was not easy. But we still went out every day to the market or to a garden or for a ride—my father traveled in his own ship with his own horses. He had brought midwives and servants with him. Our little house was overflowing.
She died and so did the baby and then I didn’t have to share her with a child, but I didn’t have her either. I cannot tell you the depth of darkness her death plummeted me into. It was as if my world became a cavernous temple, empty. With large, large statues because every person seemed large, over large, and I seemed small. In a hole, away from them. Their voices echoed with the emptiness of my life.
But I was not alone. My father was there and he was grieved and cried, but he did not stop talking. He talked and talked. I listened and listened, and we got on a boat with Tallyrus and Mazra, and then I was in a chariot going to Caeruleus and I knew what to expect. I knew what it looked like. I knew who was going to be there. I knew things beyond what my father had told me. I knew everything; nothing was a surprise and everyone was nice and good and warm to me, but my mother wasn’t anywhere.
Suddenly I was in a household with dozens of servants and family. Valentina, Lucas and Flavia’s mother, told me that I was welcome, that she knew I loved my mother, Ambrosia, and that Valentina would not replace my mother but that I was welcome and I was part of their family. She saw me every day; she talked to me, and she seemed pleased if I were around.
At first I stayed the places I was taken. I stayed in my room until a servant took me to a meal and then after the meal I went where the servant led me and I stayed there. I did not explore; I did not venture. If Flavia or Lucas or Valentina or Artorius talked to me, I talked to them. If they asked me to do something, I did. If I needed help at it, they helped me.
Caeruleus was different then. It was before Lucas had started breeding the horses. There were horses and we rode them and cared for them, but it was not the same as the bustling breeding business, the bustling training business. It was more pastoral.
But I digress. I was in their house but I was not a part of it. Or at least I felt that I was not. When our father was home, I had to share him and I did feel as if I could not take up more time that the others, but he spent time with all of us and each of us and then he was gone again. As he had always been. But now he spent most of his time between Rome and Caeruleus.
When Flavia married Justus, I found a friend in him. He was easy to talk to and he listened to me. I talked to him more than I had to anyone. He was like a tablet. He remembered everything anyone ever told him. And even though my mother had been dead five or six years when I met him, I told him everything there was to know about her, and he told me he wished he would have known her.
What is your best memory of the centuries?
I really thought I was on to doing something great when I was King Arthur and it’s nice to know those actions became a legend. The inspiration of equality of chivalry and honor from Jesus to King Arthur are always good ways to inspire others.
Who influenced you the most before you became immortal.
My mother and father, my mother most. Everything I am I owe to her and I knew her for a brief second of my life yet I hear her voice and see her in my mind nearly every day. I became a good person because of her. I gained great skills because of her influence.
What were your parents like?
Ginevra thought I was the Flavius Artorius son her father had arranged for her to marry. She did not know who Lucas was. She and I had met and talked briefly by accident once in the market. I suppose she had seen me at other places. Our families were in the same circles. She did not come to the Circus; she supposed I was the racer.
I had seen her and I was attracted to her. But Father had arranged the marriage before I was even aware of it. I would have spoken for her; I should have spoken for her, but it was too late.
Lucas did not know she were have preferred to marry me. It may or may not have mattered. I would not have spoken against Father’s arrangement, at that time—how naive I was. The attraction with her was great; it was mutual.
I traveled a lot. I went to Epidaurus, Cos, and Athens. I was in the military for a year, leaving a few months after Lucas left for his own stint in the military. After he left, it was hard and painful to be near her and we . . . well, I told Father I needed to join up.
After my year was over I told Father I wanted to marry and for him to arrange it. It was my solution to stop wanting Ginevra. But it didn’t work.
Junia was too young. It just didn’t work. And I wanted Ginevra all the more. Junia and I were congenial, but she was not a wife to me. She wanted to be a wife. She was like a child playing house. She tried overly hard. She tried to seduce me. She tried to interest me. But we had no interests in common. She said the things she thought she was supposed to say and there was nothing genuine about her—but it was not her fault. I did not know how to help her. Flavia tried. In fact they were close, almost like a mother/daughter. But it was strange and I was uncomfortable. And I wanted Ginevra all the more. My life seemed doomed to years of yearning.
Whose death over all the years was the saddest?
My mother’s of course. Then Ginevra’s, Junia’s because that seemed my failure and as if she didn’t deserve it. Our son’s. My family’s: each member that I know of. I try to keep track but it’s hard. I know that death is an illusion and they will all be back again and I will find them, if I am supposed to. Human ties are not what is most important. The essence of the human ties are. The way we treat each other is the most important, no matter who we come in contact with. Having the same souls in our lives over and over is interesting and important to growth but it doesn’t matter in the end who it is—we are all one.
What do you think of being immortal?
It is what Jesus came to show us, isn’t it? Eternal life. Our immortality may be different than what he was talking about, but maybe it’s not. From that day, the day of his death, Christianity was set on its course—for better or worse, and he gifted us with the foundation of his message. Eternal life and love. Love others as we love ourselves. We are an eternal part of the same metaphysical soup, the tapestry of the universe. Everything we do, we do to ourselves and everyone else. We have the chance to see that everyone sees the benefits of accepting one another.
What is the hardest job you ever had?
Maybe the mining for me. It was a hardship on the people, not that it was too physically taxing for me. So much undue hardship. But any life where I see a lot of suffering, I do what I can but I can’t make choices for people and I can’t sweep away poverty and ill health.
What is your secret that no one knows?
My secret is that I killed my mother because I wanted the baby to dissolve and she was dissolved with it. And also my secret is that Ginevra and I have been together. That we have stolen moments of time. But it is dangerous. I do not know what Lucas would do and he could send her away or have her killed. And he might hate me forever. I think I need him in my life. We have something together that is meaningful to me even though I have not shown it. I am aloof because I love his wife. I need to get past that.
What do we, the readers, know about you that you don’t know about yourself?
The readers know that I have to fight jealousy. Because Lucas and Flavia always had my father when I did not, because Lucas and Flavia did not lose their mother in childhood, I have this part of me that fights being jealous.
I was six when I came to live at Caeruleus with my father and Lucas and the rest of the family. My mother, Ambrosia, had died. I didn’t see how I would live without her. We had lived alone in Athens with our two servants, Tallyrus and Mazra. Our house was nice but small.
My mother was beautiful with yellow hair, long enough to cover her like a shawl, and blue eyes, the color of the evening sky. She talked to me all the time. While she was cooking, or embroidering, or weaving. I went with her everywhere. To the market, to the temple.
She explained everything to me. Sometime I knew what she was saying before she said it. I thought that was because I knew her so well. She often took food or herbs to people who were sick; sometimes we would visit old people to take them porridge. She said she had plenty and wanted to share it. She taught me about flowers and plants. She helped me nurse animals. Sometimes I had ideas about what was wrong with the animals and even sometimes the people. It was like I would “see” their bodies, inside, and know where it was inflamed or if something was growing in them or if a bone was weak; I thought everyone had this gift.
My mother went to the temple most days to pray for my father, Artorius. She did not see him more than three or four times a year, but he wrote her, and me, letters. She read them to me. They were about his travels, his children, and of the races. He, like Lucas, loved horses, but more he liked the sport. I knew so much about him from the letters because my mother read them over and over and often aloud to me.
He sent her money, and we wanted for nothing. I was learning to read and to write back to him. Just a line or two in her letters to him. I liked being with my mother, and I did not like it when I was sent to school, but my father insisted. But it was only a few hours a day.
I always knew when my father would come to visit, even before my mother told me. When he came to visit, he spent all his time with my mother and with me. He taught me to ride. He told me the parts of the horse—the fetlock, the forelock—and he talked about bits and reins and illnesses of horses and what to do about it. He talked about his best racers and how someday Lucas would be and maybe I would be one too.
The idea of racing did not appeal to me and I would say, “I would rather take care of the horses,” and he would say, “Then you be the veterinarian.” And my mother would say, “Or a doctor. Helping people is a noble calling.”
Sometimes she had headaches and I would put my hands on her head and she would say it helped. Or Mazra, our cook, had arthritis in her hands and I would hold them and she would be able to use them better. When I touched someone, if I wanted to help them, my hands would tingle and burn.
My mother and my father were scrolls of information and they liked sharing with me what they knew. It seemed my whole life was her, and him, and Tallyrus and Mazra, our servants. I seldom played with other children.
I suppose we would have had horses but my mother wouldn’t. She liked where we lived and there was no place to have a horse. We were close to the marketplace and the temple and what more did we need? she would say.
I was quiet. I never had to ask questions because I was told everything. My mother seemed to know my thoughts and answered them before I had to ask, even as I often knew hers. Even when my father came, I seldom talked. I got a lot of attention but I never had to ask for a thing. It was idyllic.
I never thought it would change. There was nothing more in the world that I needed. I thought I would grow up there with her, but when I was six, it changed. My mother was going to have a baby; she talked about it to me from the beginning and I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to share her. She hoped it was a boy because she thought that would make my father happy. When we went to the temple, she prayed for my father’s safety and health and I prayed that I would not have to share my mother with another child. I did not know the alternative; I simply wanted the other child to dissolve away and not be.
When my mother was near her time, my father came to stay. He was just as excited as she was about the baby. She was large and was having a hard time walking around. Her ankles were swollen; her breath was not easy. But we still went out every day to the market or to a garden or for a ride—my father traveled in his own ship with his own horses. He had brought midwives and servants with him. Our little house was overflowing.
She died and so did the baby and then I didn’t have to share her with a child, but I didn’t have her either. I cannot tell you the depth of darkness her death plummeted me into. It was as if my world became a cavernous temple, empty. With large, large statues because every person seemed large, over large, and I seemed small. In a hole, away from them. Their voices echoed with the emptiness of my life.
But I was not alone. My father was there and he was grieved and cried, but he did not stop talking. He talked and talked. I listened and listened, and we got on a boat with Tallyrus and Mazra, and then I was in a chariot going to Caeruleus and I knew what to expect. I knew what it looked like. I knew who was going to be there. I knew things beyond what my father had told me. I knew everything; nothing was a surprise and everyone was nice and good and warm to me, but my mother wasn’t anywhere.
Suddenly I was in a household with dozens of servants and family. Valentina, Lucas and Flavia’s mother, told me that I was welcome, that she knew I loved my mother, Ambrosia, and that Valentina would not replace my mother but that I was welcome and I was part of their family. She saw me every day; she talked to me, and she seemed pleased if I were around.
At first I stayed the places I was taken. I stayed in my room until a servant took me to a meal and then after the meal I went where the servant led me and I stayed there. I did not explore; I did not venture. If Flavia or Lucas or Valentina or Artorius talked to me, I talked to them. If they asked me to do something, I did. If I needed help at it, they helped me.
Caeruleus was different then. It was before Lucas had started breeding the horses. There were horses and we rode them and cared for them, but it was not the same as the bustling breeding business, the bustling training business. It was more pastoral.
But I digress. I was in their house but I was not a part of it. Or at least I felt that I was not. When our father was home, I had to share him and I did feel as if I could not take up more time that the others, but he spent time with all of us and each of us and then he was gone again. As he had always been. But now he spent most of his time between Rome and Caeruleus.
When Flavia married Justus, I found a friend in him. He was easy to talk to and he listened to me. I talked to him more than I had to anyone. He was like a tablet. He remembered everything anyone ever told him. And even though my mother had been dead five or six years when I met him, I told him everything there was to know about her, and he told me he wished he would have known her.
What is your best memory of the centuries?
I really thought I was on to doing something great when I was King Arthur and it’s nice to know those actions became a legend. The inspiration of equality of chivalry and honor from Jesus to King Arthur are always good ways to inspire others.
Who influenced you the most before you became immortal.
My mother and father, my mother most. Everything I am I owe to her and I knew her for a brief second of my life yet I hear her voice and see her in my mind nearly every day. I became a good person because of her. I gained great skills because of her influence.
What were your parents like?
Ginevra thought I was the Flavius Artorius son her father had arranged for her to marry. She did not know who Lucas was. She and I had met and talked briefly by accident once in the market. I suppose she had seen me at other places. Our families were in the same circles. She did not come to the Circus; she supposed I was the racer.
I had seen her and I was attracted to her. But Father had arranged the marriage before I was even aware of it. I would have spoken for her; I should have spoken for her, but it was too late.
Lucas did not know she were have preferred to marry me. It may or may not have mattered. I would not have spoken against Father’s arrangement, at that time—how naive I was. The attraction with her was great; it was mutual.
I traveled a lot. I went to Epidaurus, Cos, and Athens. I was in the military for a year, leaving a few months after Lucas left for his own stint in the military. After he left, it was hard and painful to be near her and we . . . well, I told Father I needed to join up.
After my year was over I told Father I wanted to marry and for him to arrange it. It was my solution to stop wanting Ginevra. But it didn’t work.
Junia was too young. It just didn’t work. And I wanted Ginevra all the more. Junia and I were congenial, but she was not a wife to me. She wanted to be a wife. She was like a child playing house. She tried overly hard. She tried to seduce me. She tried to interest me. But we had no interests in common. She said the things she thought she was supposed to say and there was nothing genuine about her—but it was not her fault. I did not know how to help her. Flavia tried. In fact they were close, almost like a mother/daughter. But it was strange and I was uncomfortable. And I wanted Ginevra all the more. My life seemed doomed to years of yearning.
Whose death over all the years was the saddest?
My mother’s of course. Then Ginevra’s, Junia’s because that seemed my failure and as if she didn’t deserve it. Our son’s. My family’s: each member that I know of. I try to keep track but it’s hard. I know that death is an illusion and they will all be back again and I will find them, if I am supposed to. Human ties are not what is most important. The essence of the human ties are. The way we treat each other is the most important, no matter who we come in contact with. Having the same souls in our lives over and over is interesting and important to growth but it doesn’t matter in the end who it is—we are all one.
What do you think of being immortal?
It is what Jesus came to show us, isn’t it? Eternal life. Our immortality may be different than what he was talking about, but maybe it’s not. From that day, the day of his death, Christianity was set on its course—for better or worse, and he gifted us with the foundation of his message. Eternal life and love. Love others as we love ourselves. We are an eternal part of the same metaphysical soup, the tapestry of the universe. Everything we do, we do to ourselves and everyone else. We have the chance to see that everyone sees the benefits of accepting one another.
What is the hardest job you ever had?
Maybe the mining for me. It was a hardship on the people, not that it was too physically taxing for me. So much undue hardship. But any life where I see a lot of suffering, I do what I can but I can’t make choices for people and I can’t sweep away poverty and ill health.
What is your secret that no one knows?
My secret is that I killed my mother because I wanted the baby to dissolve and she was dissolved with it. And also my secret is that Ginevra and I have been together. That we have stolen moments of time. But it is dangerous. I do not know what Lucas would do and he could send her away or have her killed. And he might hate me forever. I think I need him in my life. We have something together that is meaningful to me even though I have not shown it. I am aloof because I love his wife. I need to get past that.
What do we, the readers, know about you that you don’t know about yourself?
The readers know that I have to fight jealousy. Because Lucas and Flavia always had my father when I did not, because Lucas and Flavia did not lose their mother in childhood, I have this part of me that fights being jealous.
