Empire - Saylor Steven (книги без сокращений TXT) 📗

A curious fact struck Titus. After all his scrutiny, Caligula had failed to notice the one thing that distinguished him from his brother, even in their nakedness: the fascinum. The little lump of gold felt alternately freezing cold and burning hot against Titus’s naked, sweaty flesh; it seemed at times to move and palpitate, as if it were alive.

As Titus reached a climax, the experiment reached a conclusion. Blindfolded, even their wives could not tell Titus and Kaeso apart.

An hour after their audience began, Titus and Kaeso and their wives were allowed to leave the palace – alive, unmarked and to all appearances unscathed. But as the elegant litters bore them back to the house they shared, the women wept and the brothers kept their eyes downcast.

“You should have given me the amulet when I asked for it,” said Kaeso.

Night had fallen. Their distraught wives had withdrawn to their bedrooms. The sleepless brothers sat some distance apart in their moonlit garden, shivering under heavy blankets.

Titus shook his head and scowled, amazed that this was how his brother should break the silence that had been uninterrupted between them since they had left the imperial house. “I should have given you the fascinum? What possible difference would that have made?”

“It might have protected Artemisia and me.”

“But it failed to protect any of us, you fool! A fascinum is meant to avert the gaze of the envious. But the emperor is a god, or something close to a god. His gaze was too powerful-”

“Caligula is not a god, and that object is not a fascinum.”

Titus shook his head. “Must you contradict everything I say, brother?”

“There is only one god-”

“No! Stop this impious talk.”

“And the thing around your neck may well be a holy talisman, but it isn’t a fascinum.”

“What is it, then?”

“Have you ever actually looked at it? Carefully? Do so now.”

Titus lifted the chain over his neck and reached for a lamp. The amulet glittered between his fingers. “I see a bit of gold, probably alloyed with some baser metal to make it more durable. Even so, it’s worn down to a shapeless lump-”

“Not shapeless, brother. It has a shape. Describe it.”

“A bit taller than it is wide, with little nubs projecting from each side. You can see how once it was a phallus with wings-”

“You see it as a winged phallus, brother, because that’s what you’re looking to see. But if you forget what you’ve been told, and simply look at it, what does it resemble?”

Titus shrugged. “A cross, I suppose.”

“Exactly! A cross – the crucifix upon which criminals and escaped slaves are hung to die.”

Titus made a face. “Crucifixion is the most disgraceful sort of death. Who would make an amulet of a crucifix? Unless they wanted to bring a curse on the wearer instead of a blessing.”

“I’m not saying our amulet began as a cross, Titus. Perhaps it is ancient, as ancient as our father thought. And perhaps it did begin as a fascinum, as Claudius believes. But it has become something entirely different. Time and divine will have transformed it.”

“I think it was transformed by a gradual wearing away, over many generations.”

“How it happened, here in this material world, is of no importance. What matters is the shape it has come to assume and what that shape symbolizes.”

“And what is that?”

“There are those who believe that the one true god, the creator of all things, manifested himself on earth as a man, and that man was put to death on a cross in Jerusalem during the reign of Tiberius.”

“Who believes such a thing? Your Jewish mystics in Alexandria?”

“They’re not the only ones.”

“Oh, Kaeso, don’t say these things to me! It’s too distressing. We’ve all suffered enough today-”

“We suffered because we fell into the hands of Satan himself-”

“Satan?”

“The Lord of Evil.”

“I thought you believed there was only one god.”

“There is, and he is all that is good.”

“But you’ve just told me there’s a god of evil called Satan-”

“Satan is not a god. Only God is god.”

Titus covered his ears. “Stop babbling, Kaeso!”

“How it happened, I don’t know, Titus. But we have been given an amulet in the form of a cross, a holy symbol, because it was on a cross that our Saviour, Jesus Christ, was killed.”

“Is that the name of your god, Jesus Christ? How could he possibly be killed? A god by definition is immortal. Are you saying there was ever only one god, and now he’s dead?” Titus trembled and began to weep. He fell from his chair onto his knees. “O Hercules, whose altar we founded! O Fascinus, worshipped by our family before the city was founded! O Jupiter, father and greatest of all the gods! My brother has been most cruelly treated today. His mind is unhinged! Let this madness pass from him quickly, let him come back to his senses, for the sake of his poor wife, for the sake of us all!”

Kaeso stood. His posture was defiant. “I’ve never spoken to you openly about these things, brother, because I feared this was how you would react. Someday I hope to bring you to the true knowledge of God, which I received in Alexandria, and which is known even here in Roma, if only by a few. The reward for enlightenment is eternal life, brother.”

“And this?” Titus, still on his knees, clutched the fascinum and shook his fist. “That was how this mad conversation began, with your claim that the amulet might have saved you. How might that have happened?”

“There must be a reason that this crucifix was given to us. Had I, as a believer, been wearing it, the power of Jesus Christ might have shielded us from the hateful gaze of Satan himself. True believers have witnessed many such miracles-”

“But you just said that your god was dead!” In anger and disgust, Titus hurled the amulet at his brother. “Here, take it! I never want to see it again. The thing is useless, not even worth the gold it’s made of. Keep it, Kaeso. Wear it every day if you like, and see what good it does you!”

“Terrible!” said Claudius, shaking his head. “T-t-truly appalling. It’s brave of you, T-Titus, to confide in me.”

They were in Claudius’s private apartment in the imperial complex. Some rumour about the twins’ ordeal must have reached him, for when Titus sent a message, asking again for a meeting, Claudius responded at once.

His invitation was addressed to both brothers, but Kaeso had refused to come, saying he would never set foot in any part of the palace again. It was just as well that Titus came alone; since the day of the audience and the argument that followed, the brothers had hardly spoken.

Titus had intended to conceal the more humiliating aspects of their audience with the emperor, but soon found himself telling the older man everything.

“It will g-g-give you no comfort,” said Claudius, “but you should know that I myself have been treated almost as shamefully by my nephew. He’s seen fit to kill many of those around him, and not from fear or suspicion, as Tiberius and even Augustus occasionally did; he seems to do it from sheer spite. He’s spared me so far, but he’s made it clear that I could d-d-die at any moment. He keeps me alive solely for the pleasure of making me squirm every now and then. More than once he’s reduced me to tears and made me b-beg for my life. I speak of this to no one, but I’m telling you, Titus, because you have been so honest with me.”

“But why didn’t you warn us, cousin? We’d heard rumours about his eccentric behaviour, but nothing prepared us for what happened.”

Claudius shrugged. “His unpredictable nature is a p-p-part of his madness. Sometimes he behaves with perfect decency. I hoped you might be lucky. I kept my distance for fear of attracting attention to you. And if I had warned you of the danger, would you have refused the audience? That would have invited something even worse – and believe me, as awful as it was, what Caligula did to you was not the most horrible atrocity he’s committed against an unsuspecting innocent.”