Gore Vidal’s Caligula (21 page)

“You like that? Yes? It was good?”

“Oh, it was wonderful, Gaius. Better than ever.” Drusilla arched back against him, like a cat, as he fondled her breasts.

“It’s a favorite trick of Caesonia’s. This large mirror was a gift from her, and it’s a position she favors. I like it too. It goes in so deep.”

Drusilla pulled herself off Caligula’s lap, and her face was stormy as she put on her gown. “Don’t marry her,” she said shortly.

Caligula played absently with his cock. “But I love her. I think. Anyway, she interests me.”

“More than I do?” she demanded, pacing up and down the bedroom.

“You are my sister, remember?” Caligula’s coolness was calculated; he loved to encourage Drusilla’s jealousy. “Anyway, she’s on probation. I’ve told her that I’ll marry her
only
if she has my child.”

“And how will you know it’s yours?” purred Drusilla.

“She’s being guarded by eunuchs twenty-four hours a day.” Caligula laughed maliciously. “She’s furious.”

“People will be shocked if you marry Caesonia,” his sister warned.

Caligula rose angrily from the love-chair and threw on a gauzy robe. “Damn the people! All of them!” He put his arms around his sister, cuddling her body to his. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were no one in the world except us,” he murmured.

“But then you couldn’t play games,” Drusilla teased. “The way you did with that young couple on their wedding day . . .”

Caligula giggled, remembering. “I couldn’t help myself. I’m just like my ancestors.”

“Which ones?”

“Venus, who else? Except I
was
a bit more like Jupiter. I had both girl
and
boy. I’m still raw.” He patted his genitals, pleased with himself.

Drusilla chose her next words with care. “People are going to say it’s not the gods you resemble, but Tiberius . . .”

“Now don’t upset me.” Caligula frowned. “It’s bad enough, the life I lead. Trapped in this palace. Surrounded by . . .” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You know Tiberius Gemellus is plotting against me?”

“I don’t believe it,” said Drusilla hotly.

“Longinus has proof.”

“What proof?”

“For one thing, the boy thinks I’m trying to poison him.”

“And are you?”

“Certainly not!” He giggled. “What do you think I am?”

“Don’t ask.” Drusilla smiled fondly.

“I wish you’d stop criticizing me all the time. Look. Come back to the mirror. I have something new to show you. If you kneel down, so . . . and I stand right here . . .”

“Should I make myself King of Rome?” Caligula asked idly, picking at his spiced duck.

Claudius, who lay on the banqueting couch next to his, swallowed hard. “King” was a dirty word in Rome, and had been for centuries, ever since the Romans had chased the ruling Tarquins out. “King!” he gulped. “Oh, dear. Well, this is . . . a republic, isn’t it? That is . . .”

“You are already greater than any king, Caesar,” Longinus put in tactfully.

Sullenly, Caligula pushed the platter of duck away and looked to see what was being served next.

The private banquet room held no more than twenty people, not counting slaves, and tonight every place on every couch was filled. Slaves trotted back and forth with huge silver basins and ewers for hand-washing, and heavy platters of exotic food—Apician jelly; a dish of chicken mixed with truffles, peaches and herbs; a pignolia nut and honey custard that was a favorite of Caligula’s; a whole boar roasted and stuffed with chestnuts and apples; and dozens of other dishes. Now a slave approached with a large platter of mixed seafood—lobster croquettes, stuffed squid, fish balls in wine sauce, oysters and mussels and lamprey eels. Greedily, the Emperor pointed to what he wanted, and the slave filled a heaping dish for him.

“I know,” he sighed to Longinus. “But yet I feel so . . . undistinguished.”

“To us you are like a god,” flattered Longinus.

Caligula smiled graciously. “Actually I
am
a god, I suppose. At least I’ll be one when I’m dead.” The second thought was not a pleasant one. Two couches away lay Tiberius Gemellus, eating very sparingly.

“Try some of these lampreys,” called Caligula. “They’re from my own plate.”

Gemellus looked up nervously as a slave brought the food over to him. Caligula watched closely as the boy took the smallest mouthful possible. Then he rose, sauntered over to Gemellus, and sat down on the edge of his couch.

“You used to love lampreys when we were on Capri,” he said. Picking up several lampreys on the end of his knife, he began to feed Gemellus as though he were a baby. Suddenly, he drew back the knife and bent over it, sniffing suspiciously.

“What’s that smell?” he demanded.

“What smell, Caesar?” squeaked Gemellus.

Caligula leaned toward the boy, sniffing harder. “Your breath. What have you been taking?”

Gemellus clapped a hand over his mouth. “Some medicine . . .” he stammered. “To . . . to . . . ward . . . off the fever . . . it’s in the city and . . .”

Caligula broke into the boy’s hysterical babbling. “No, Tiberius Gemellus,” he said grimly. “You have come to Caesar’s table
after
swallowing an antidote for poison.”

Gemellus gasped and turned white. The others in the dining room froze. “No, Caesar!” protested the terrified boy. “There’s my physician, Charicles. He’ll tell you it’s just—”

Caligula had whirled on Charicles. “Did you give him medicine for his throat?”

Fear made the doctor very pale. “Well, Caesar . . . Lord . . . I . . .”

“Did you?”
demanded Caligula, his face like a thunder head.

Charicles closed his eyes and took the gamble. “Uh . . . no . . . no . . .” he lied, knowing that it was what Caligula wanted to hear. There
was
fever in the city of Rome, highly contagious and deadly.

Triumphantly, Caligula turned back to the boy. “Tiberius Gemellus,” he said with deadly softness, “to accuse your sovereign of being a poisoner is a treasonous offense, punishable by death.”

Icy fingers gripped Gemellus’ heart. It had arrived, the moment he’d dreaded for years. “But, Caesar, I never did!” he pleaded, tears flowing down his cheeks. “I . . .”

“Caligula!” Drusilla protested sharply.

Caligula ignored her. “I am now obliged to follow ancient but necessary laws. Guards!” Two guards stepped forward smartly. “Arrest Tiberius Gemellus! For treason.”

The guards pulled the weeping boy off the couch and dragged him away. His hysterical shrieks could be heard echoing in the corridors long after he was gone.

“As if there can ever really be an antidote against Caesar,” said Caligula, smiling.

Drusilla crossed the room to his couch. Her fists were clenched, her brows drawn together in rage. In a low voice that could be heard by Caligula’s ear only, she hissed, “You stupid bloody fool!”

Instantly, Caligula rose and struck her hard in the face, knocking her down. The room went silent as the Emperor’s sister picked herself up and walked out without a word. Only Caesonia was smiling.

Caligula drew a deep breath and re-seated himself. Picking a lamprey off his plate, he popped it into his mouth and chewed with evident relish. “And they weren’t even poisoned!” he exclaimed.

Everybody laughed with relief at the Emperor’s restored good humor. Caligula beckoned Caesonia over to take Tiberius Gemellus’ place. This put her closer to the Emperor’s couch, a sign of favor.

“Well done,” she told him.

“Thank you.” He thought she meant Gemellus.

“What will you do to her?”

“Her?”

“Your sister, Drusilla. What she said to you was treason.”

Caligula turned icy eyes on her.
“I
decide what is treason, not you. Do your dance, Caesonia.”

“Which dance?”

“The Asiatic one.”

She rose at once, and Caligula clapped his palms together for silence. “Caesonia will dance for us,” he announced.

With a word to the musicians, Caesonia took her. place in the space formed by the couches. Kneeling, she fastened bells to her ankles and tiny cymbals to her fingers, then stood and calmly shrugged off her banqueting-robe. A gasp rose. She was naked, except for a tiny cache-sex on a thin string of silver that circled her waist. Swiftly, she pulled the pins from her hair, and the mass of dark, thick tresses tumbled down her back. The musicians struck up, and Caesonia began to dance.

She danced slowly, sensuously, her hips rotating lazily in time to the music, her large breasts barely jiggling. Her fingers struck the little cymbals together, and the bells on her ankles jingled softly. The music’s tempo increased, and Caesonia began to dance faster. Her hair whirled around her face, and her nipples hardened visibly as her breasts began to bounce. Throwing her head back, she closed her eyes and bent backward from the waist until her long hair touched the floor. Faster and faster her belly and hips began to shake, as though some mighty god was bringing her to orgasm. Every eye in the place, female as well as male, was fixed on her, and even Caligula had stopped chewing to stare.

The music was furious now, and Caesonia’s feet moved so quickly that they became no more than a blur. Her breasts seemed to have a life of their own. Caesonia adored exhibiting her body. Her eyes closed in pleasure and her tongue snaked out to lick her lips.

“Claudius, did you ever see such breasts?” asked Caligula.

The old man began to stammer and drool, waving his hands helplessly to show how much he appreciated Caesonia.

The music was reaching a climax, and so was Caesonia’s dance. Her hips jerked furiously in orgasmic rhythm, from side to side, then in and out. Suddenly she reached behind her and broke the silver string of the little pouch that covered her sex. She whipped it off, threw it directly at Caligula, and stood totally naked, her legs spread wide as though she’d been fucked by Jupiter himself. But even though Caligula led the furious applause, her face was now cold and impassive.

Caligula wasn’t well. The headaches were worse, and he had lost weight, and his hair had thinned so alarmingly he’d finally consented to a wig for public appearances. His cheeks had hollowed, making his large eyes appear absolutely enormous. There was a haggard, listless air about him these days, relieved only by manic fits of childish petulance. He and Drusilla were barely speaking and Caesonia, pregnant at last, saw her own star in the ascendant.

He prayed a lot to Isis, sister, wife and resurrectress of Osiris, whose fragmented body she had searched for, found, and made whole again. “I am that which is, has been and shall be,” said the inscription on her statue. “My veil no one has lifted. The fruit I bore was the sun.” To Caligula, Isis represented immortality, the promise of eternal life. He clung to that promise as though it had been made only to him.

The headaches grew still worse, longer and more painful. One night they erupted into the fever. Delirious, burning up, Caligula tossed on his bed and screamed at the apparition of Tiberius that came for him with a wolfish grin. Only Drusilla could save him.

“Drusilla! Help me! Keep him away from me!” he babbled in his delirium.

Charicles was afraid he might die. Reluctantly, Caesonia sent for Drusilla; Caligula wanted nobody but her.

“I’m here, Little Boots,” Drusilla said softly, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Caligula grabbed at her hand with his dry, feverish one. “I’m dying,” he whispered, his eyes wide with terror.

“You’re not. It’s just the fever,” she assured him calmly.

“I must make my will,” he babbled.

“Don’t talk. Sleep.” She stroked his burning forehead.

“Longinus. Where is he?”

“I am here, Caesar.”

Caligula raised himself to one elbow. “I must make my will.”

Longinus beckoned to a slave, who brought writing materials.

“I herewith leave to my beloved sister Drusilla all my property,” rattled Caligula. “I also bequeath to her the Roman Empire with the title of Augusta . . . and . . .” He began to drift off. “. . . and . . . I leave her . . . the uniform . . . I wore in Germany . . . as a child . . . and the . . . little boots.” He sank back on the pillow, exhausted, and shut his eyes.

Drusilla stroked his forehead again; it was wet with fever-sweat. Longinus scribbled the last few syllables of the will. Caesonia stood at the back of the room, tense with rage and jealousy. To have left that incestuous bitch everything! The Empire, everything! While she, Caesonia, was carrying this monster’s child in her belly. Intolerable! No, Caligula had to survive. And if he did, she knew what steps she would take with Drusilla!

“He’s sleeping,” murmured Drusilla.

“No, he’s not,” said Caligula, opening his eyes. With a great effort, he took the scribbled document from Longinus, scrawled his name on it, and stamped the hot wax with his signet. Then he fell back onto the bed again; “Don’t let me die,” he whispered to Drusilla.

She gathered her baby brother’s thin, febrile body close to her breasts, rocking him back and forth as though he were a suckling infant. “Sleep, child, sleep . . .” she whispered. “Drusilla’s here. You’re safe . . .”

Caligula slept.

The next day the fever broke. The crowds sent up prayers of thanksgiving, and dedicated statues to Caligula, garlanding them with flowers. The Emperor lived! Long live the Emperor!

He had promised to marry Caesonia if she would have his heir, and on the day that she went into labor, she was carried into the main hall of the Palatine on a litter. From behind the curtain where she lay, the large crowd of courtiers could hear her every scream. Dressed and garlanded like a bridegroom, Caligula waited for the birth, ready to keep his promise publicly.

Though a midwife and Charicles both attended Caesonia, the birth was long and painful, and her screams went on and on. But they were music to Caligula’s ears; they meant he was to become a father at last. All was going well, promised the midwife.

“You’re absolutely certain it’s yours?” Drusilla asked for the hundredth time.

“I wish you liked her,” sighed Caligula.

“I wish she liked . . . you.” Drusilla was almost afraid to say it.

“What matters is what I feel about her, not what she feels about me,” Caligula pointed out deliberately.