Empire - Saylor Steven (книги без сокращений TXT) 📗

Staring back at him was a nearly naked man with a crazed look in his eyes, his face bruised, his lips bleeding. How quickly his dignified, untouchable identity as a Roman senator had been stripped from him!

Titus looked this way and that, desperate to find someone to whom he could explain his situation.

Suddenly he was face-to-face with Kaeso.

He had never before seen his brother look so wretched. Like Titus, Kaeso wore only a loincloth. The body Titus saw before him was familiar but distorted, like a mockery of his own, covered with bruises and wounds and bloody patches. Kaeso had been beaten and tortured. From his gaunt appearance, he had been starved as well. There was nothing aloof about his manner, as was the case with some of the Christians; Kaeso looked utterly broken and unnerved. Titus saw a pitiful, frightened man.

As the arrest and interrogation of the Christians had proceeded and the day of their punishment approached, Titus had forced himself not to think about his brother. He had told himself so many times that he had no brother that he almost believed it. Now Kaeso stood before him, a shadow of the man he once had been, but still undeniably the son of Lucius Pinarius, Titus’s twin brother. Titus felt an unbearable sadness, remembering their boyhood together in Alexandria and the years before they became strangers to each other. How had they grown so far apart? How had Kaeso ended up among these mad death-worshippers?

“It’s alright, brother,” whispered Kaeso. “I forgive you.”

Titus’s sadness faded. He felt a quiver of anger. What had he done to require forgiveness? Why did Kaeso always have to be so smug and self-righteous?

He tried to think of something to say, but there was no time. Suddenly a line of Praetorians was between them, forcing Kaeso into one group and Titus into another. With the Praetorians barking orders at them, the people in Kaeso’s group were forced to put on tunics soaked in pitch, then their arms were tied behind them.

A door opened. From the arena came the roar of the crowd. The stage manager screamed at the prisoners to hurry into the arena. “Quickly, quickly, quickly!” Guards with spears herded them through the opening.

Titus suddenly realized that his meeting with Kaeso had not been accidental. The gods had given him a last chance to save himself. He stepped away from his group and tried to get the attention of the stage manager. “We’re twins! That’s my twin brother! Look at us! Do you see? There are two of us, but it’s my twin brother who’s the Christian, not I! I’m not supposed to be here!”

The stage manager gave him an exasperated look and rolled his eyes. One of the guards used the butt of his spear to knock Titus to the ground.

Kaeso managed to break away from the group and ran to Titus. Stinking of pitch, with his arms bound behind him, he dropped to his knees beside his brother.

“Give me the crucifix,” he whispered. “Please, Titus! It’s the only thing that can give me strength to face the end.”

Lying on his back, Titus clutched the fascinum at his chest and shook his head.

“Titus, I beg you! Titus, I’m about to be burned alive! Please, brother, grant me this one small favour!”

Reluctantly, Titus removed the necklace and put it over Kaeso’s head. Even as he did so, he knew it was wrong to give it up. He reached desperately to grab the fascinum and take it back, but a guard pulled Kaeso to his feet and the fascinum eluded Titus’s grasp.

Kaeso was the last of his group to be herded onto the track. Titus scrambled to his feet. Through the opened door, he saw that the prisoners were being lifted up and placed in the iron baskets atop the pitch-soaked poles. Guards carrying torches ran onto the track and stationed themselves by the poles, ready to set the human torches alight.

As Titus watched, Kaeso was driven to the nearest of the poles; he was the last to be lifted into a basket. Titus caught a glimpse of something bright and glittering at his brother’s breast – the fascinum – then averted his eyes. He could not bear to watch.

He heard a low murmur run though the crowd, a rush of indrawn breath like wind passing though tall grass. This was followed by a cheer that started at one end of the circus, then gradually rose to a roar. From the stands above came the deafening noise of spectators stamping their feet in excitement.

Titus stepped to the doorway and peered outside. At the far end of the circus, a lone charioteer had driven onto the track. He was dressed in the leather racing outfit and helmet of the green faction favoured by the emperor. The charioteer was driving his white steeds at a slow canter as he waved to the crowd.

There were charioteers whose popularity rivalled that of the most famous gladiators, but what charioteer could be so high in the emperor’s esteem that Nero would select him to play this majestic, even godlike role? As the charioteer drove past each human torch, he raised his arm, pointed an accusing finger at the prisoner, and the torch burst into flames. The effect was uncanny, as if the charioteer had the power to cast thunderbolts.

As more torches were lit, the arena grew brighter, and Titus at last saw what the crowd in the stands had already perceived: the charioteer was Nero.

As the emperor continued his slow progress, he drew nearer and nearer to the doorway where Titus stood, and to the pole on which Kaeso had been hoisted. With a gesture from Nero, the torch next to Kaeso was set alight. Kaeso would be next.

Suddenly, Titus felt hands on him. The guards had seen that he was at the opening and were pulling him back. Summoning all his strength, Titus managed to break free. He ran onto the track.

He slipped on a slick, wet spot and tumbled forward. Scrambling to his feet, he touched something and screamed in revulsion. It was a mangled human ear. He staggered to his feet and looked at himself. Wherever his naked flesh had touched the ground he was covered in a gritty paste of sand and blood. He heard the guards shouting behind him and ran.

How different it was, to be here on the arena floor, rather than in the imperial box! He had watched the day’s proceedings from the stands with a mixture of grim determination and exalted privilege, comfortably remote from what was taking place in the arena below. Now he found himself in a bizarre landscape of towering crucifixes and human torches, surrounded by flames and carnage. The blood, urine, and faeces of dogs and humans littered the sand. Everywhere he looked he saw fingers and toes and other scraps of flesh left behind by the ravenous hounds. A nauseating stench filled his nostrils, and hot smoke burned his lungs. Above the roar of the crowd he heard the screams of those set alight, the crackling of burning bodies, and the moans of the crucified.

With the guards at his heels, Titus rushed headlong towards Nero. He reached the chariot and threw himself on the ground.

Basking in the approval of the crowd, his eyes glittering in the firelight, Nero registered no surprise at Titus’s sudden appearance. He grinned broadly, then threw back his head and laughed. He pulled at the reins to stop the horses and waved at the guards to draw back. He stepped from the chariot, strode to the spot where Titus lay gasping on the sand, and stooped over to pat him on the head.

“Never fear, Senator Pinarius,” he said. “Caesar will save you!”

Weeping with relief, Titus clutched Nero’s spindly legs. “Thank you! Thank you, Caesar!”

The spectators assumed this exchange was part of the entertainment. They applauded and roared with laughter at Nero’s satirical demonstration of clemency amid such overwhelming carnage.

“Nero is merciful! Merciful Nero!” someone shouted, and the crowd took up the chant: “Nero is merciful! Merciful Nero! Nero is merciful! Merciful Nero!” The chant mingled with the shrieking of the human torches.