Rule of God (Book Three of the Dominium Dei Trilogy) (10 page)

“On the contrary, Your Highness, he said it was your prophecy as Lord and God that would determine the outcome.”

“My prophecy?”

Regulus cleared his throat, fully aware he was voicing what nobody else would, and yet claiming they were not his words from his own mouth but those of Caesar himself. He picked up a tablet and read from it.

“Caesar himself was overheard yesterday refusing a present of apples and telling his servant Julius, ‘Serve them tomorrow, if only I am spared to eat them. There will be blood on the moon as she enters Aquarius, and a deed will be done for everyone to talk about throughout the world.’”

“My word! My word!” Domitian stood up, beside himself. “Silence!”

The basilica was quiet.

“What time is it? What is the hour?”

Julius conferred with another member of the staff who ran out, then returned and whispered in his ear. Julius announced, “The time is 10 o’clock, Your Highness. It is the sixth hour.”

Domitian collapsed into his chair and exhaled. The hour had passed! He had survived! The gods were indeed greater than the stars!

He looked across the small group of magistrates in the hall and noted their dismay, even horror, at this reality, and stood up to address them.

“The deed has been done today that the world will talk about. Emperor Domitian Flavius is a god who defies the stars, and whose reign shall be forever. And the deed shall be memorialized with blood on the moon in Aquarius, beginning with the execution of this astrologer and all astrologers who would worship the stars instead of their Caesar. Kill him. I’m off to my bath.”

And with that, Caesar walked out of the basilica with a new bounce in his step and deaf ears to shouts from behind.

“But Your Highness!” Regulus called out.

Domitian could feel a second wind enter his body, a second spirit, a new life. To have this weight removed from his shoulders! To have the unequivocal salutation of the gods!

“I will feast tonight on the blood of my enemies!” he told his entourage of attendants as he walked, the old energy of hatred focusing his mind now that the fog of dread had lifted. “I have my list, and my Praetorian will have names.”

I knew you would protect me, dear Minerva, he prayed to himself, then turned a corner to find Parthenius his chamberlain waiting for him. Domitian stopped, as did the several attendants who had followed him out of the basilica.

Parthenius said, “Your Highness, a person has come to wait upon you with a document about a matter of great importance that simply cannot be delayed.”

Domitian frowned. That Parthenius refused to name this person in the company of the others informed Domitian that this matter was indeed important. But could it be more important than his bath? He felt like Jesus rising out of his tomb, and now he wanted to plunge into the waters of his bath like a baptism to symbolize his rebirth. At the same time, Domitian understood that word of his survival had probably scattered the panicked roaches from the shadows into the light, and he should make haste to crush them all.

“Then I will retire to my chamber,” he announced, dismissing the others and following Parthenius inside.

It was his servant Stephanus who was waiting for him with a letter, and his arm still looked no better with its bandage.

“I told you that you should have one of my doctors check that out,” Domitian told him as he took the letter and began to open it.

“I think I shall,” Stephanus said.

Domitian looked up to see that Stephanus had actually unwound the bandage, but there was no wound. Then he saw the dagger in Stephanus’s hand before it stabbed him and he screamed, “Minerva!”

He lunged for the dagger he kept under the pillow of his bed and found the sheath. But it was empty!

Stephanus pulled out the dagger and was about to strike him again when Domitian tackled him to the floor. He dug his long fingers into Stephanus’s eyes and ripped them out, making Stephanus howl and release his dagger.

Domitan grabbed the dagger and slashed Stephanus’s throat, screaming at the top of his lungs to his Praetorian outside, “Help! Help!”

He felt a stab at his neck and saw Stephanus reaching up to him, an eye hanging out of its socket, his mouth awash in blood. Domitian kicked him like a dog, grabbed the statue of Minerva and smashed it on his head.

“Die, you Christian scum! Like your master my cousin! Die, all of you!”

A
thanasius had returned to Rome with the express purpose of seeking vengeance on Ludlumus and Domitian, reuniting with Helena and getting their life back. Fulfilling his obligation to the Christians by assassinating Domitian and installing Young Vespasian was simply the cost of doing business and doing good for the people of Rome as well as the Church.

But that plan, he knew as he stood in the middle of the Coliseum facing Ludlumus, was blown.

Ludlumus had faked his death, Virtus had been caught, and Domitian still had a knife under his pillow to defend himself against Stephanus, assuming Stephanus hadn’t been captured and killed already. Instead of changing the government of Rome and installing a Christian emperor in Young Vespasian, Athanasius had only ensured an extension of Domitian’s Reign of Terror and retribution on the Christians he had sworn to help.

Still, there was no sight of Stephanus. If they had Virtus, why not show Stephanus too? Perhaps Stephanus was still at large, and a confrontation in Domitian’s chamber imminent. If so, he would have to entertain Ludlumus long enough for Stephanus to take his stab at Domitian. It might be an even fight now, if Domitian had his dagger, but at least it would be a fight.

Athanasius looked at Helena, who put on a brave face even as her body trembled. The best he could hope for now was to make the exchange—the adoption papers for Helena, maybe Virtus too—and escape Rome before the wrath of Domitian came down.

“Welcome back, Athanasius,” said Ludlumus. “Or should I call you Clement, Bishop of Rome? That is the name you took in Ephesus, isn’t it, before you killed our man Croesus?”

Athanasius noticed Virtus motioning with his eyes to the pit, where grains of sand continued to fall like water to the bottom where the lions roared. It might be worth a try to push Ludlumus over while Virtus broke free, but it was hard to believe Ludlumus had not anticipated such a move. He stepped forward in the sand, and, sure enough, an arrow suddenly landed in front of him as a warning. He glanced over his shoulder at the empty stands, wondering where the sharpshooters were hiding.

Athanasius pulled out the certificate of adoption and paused. “Your plan has failed, Ludlumus. Even if Domitian lives, he’ll know who you really are. You’re a dead man. You should leave Rome immediately.”

Ludlumus roared with laughter. “You don’t disappoint, Athanasius. But once again you’re gravely mistaken. The only surprise is going to be on your assassin Stephanus. I simply wanted the document to blackmail Nerva and ensure he sees to it that the senate confirms Vespasian the Younger as the new emperor. Now you’ve made even that a question mark.”

Ludlumus produced a dagger, and from the imperial insignia Athanasius knew it could only belong to Domitian. So Virtus had removed it from the emperor’s chamber after all.

“Yes, Athanasius, I wanted him dead too.”

Virtus, meanwhile, shifted in his chains, the gladiator behind him shifting with him but keeping the blade close to his throat.

Ludlumus said, “Of course, it will be a tragedy if Domitian survives now because of you. He’s going to slaughter Young Vespasian and name the baby in Helena’s womb his official heir, his true blood. She’ll be as safe as Venus, and you’ll be food for worms. You and your friends in Cappadocia. Oh, yes, thanks to you and that little whore of yours, we now know about the secret Angel’s Pass inside the mountains.”

“What game are you playing, Ludlumus?”

“The greatest game of all.” Ludlumus beamed in triumph. “Do you really think God spared your life in prison by having a Jesus-like figure Marcus take your place to die here in this arena? I sent Marcus through the Dei, threatening him with the lives of his wife and children. It was for them he died, Athanasius, not you.”

Athanasius felt an invisible hand shake him to the core like a leafless tree. “To what end, Ludlumus?”

“To get you to John on Patmos, and get him to implant you within the church in Cappadocia. He guessed it from the start, I suppose.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe it, Athanasius. The miracle is that it worked in spite of your schemes. First in your arrogance with Domitian’s dog, which told him you were alive. Then your handiwork in Corinth, and again in Patmos. Domitian’s legions would have killed you in Ephesus were it not for my intervention through the Dei.”

“Your intervention?”

“It was I who gave Croesus orders to send Virtus here to reach you before the Romans killed you at your drop-off outside the library. You returned the favor by killing Croesus, and setting your sights on the Dovilins, which was the same end I had for you: to use the Dei to compromise the church in Cappadocia, then go after Domitian and replace him with his nephew and establish a new Christian empire. So you see, dear Clement of Rome, Jesus was never the author and finisher of your faith. I am.”

The inflection on the divine “I am” sent a shudder down Athanasius’s spine. The overcast skies above seemed to roll back like a scroll to reveal nothing but a pitch blackness beyond, darker than anything he had ever imagined, as if all the stars had fallen away and with them any flicker of hope.

“And what did my so-called Lord and God Ludlumus intend for his servant Athanasius?”

“To bring you back here at the end of your quest to unmask Chiron. And I now present him to you. He is you, Athanasius. You are Chiron. You have always been.”

“I am not, Ludlumus. Your overestimate my influence—and yours—over hearts and minds.”

“Hardly. You saw the effects in Cappadocia of my epistle to the Thessalonians as Paul, the one that Bishop Paul read to the church that created such a stir.”

“You wrote that?”

“Yes, and you too might write something people might actually worship. Everything you ever imagined as a playwright—glory, immortality—I can give it to you.”

Athanasius looked at Helena’s hopeless expression, and then at Virtus, whose darting eyes indicated he was ready to make his move. “If you were behind that bogus letter, Ludlumus, it did nothing but inspire many of the Cappadocians to quit working the fields and hole up in their caves with their stockpiles of foodstuffs.”

“Exactly. How else were the Dovilins to control the masses except through fear? Fear kept the Christians in their caves. Fear works, Clement. All of our Roman religion depends on fear of the wrath of gods. From that fear of wrath come all our temples, sacrifices, feasts and commerce. Without fear of what is to come in the afterlife, Rome has only the blade to motivate people in this life. If Christianity is to become the state religion, we must take the fear of wrath from your John’s Book of Revelation and use it to fashion a true religion from the superstition of Jesus and the notion that his death and resurrection somehow appeased God’s wrath once and for all.”

“I thought Rome wanted to destroy the Church.”

“No, Athanasius. The superstition of men can’t be razed like the temple in Jerusalem. It is a fire. It can only be directed or corrupted.”

It was all becoming chillingly clear to Athanasius now. “So my plan to kill Domitian and replace him with Vespasian the Younger in order to create a Christian Rome is the plan of the Dei, and has been all along.”

Ludlumus nodded. “The Dei no longer wants to destroy the Church. It wants to corrupt the superstition, turn it into a real religion and merge it with Rome to last a thousand years. For that to happen, it must demand some sort of sacrifice to appease the wrath of God and his final judgment so eloquently depicted by your friend John. The sacraments, rituals and worship must be commercialized—wine, idols, temples and the like. Then they can be politicized and socialized as the official state religion of Rome. Loyalty will be one and the same to Caesar and Jesus.”

“So you don’t intend to kill me.”

“Kill you? You’re far too valuable to Rome for that.”

“And what’s in the New Rome for you, Ludlumus?”

“Young Vespasian will be Caesar, and I will be Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Church. But I will rule the empire through the young emperor.”

“Like your father ruled through young Domitian before Vespasian arrived in Rome.”

“And betrayed my father for his loyalty by killing him,” Ludlumus hissed. “Now I will do likewise, and not just to Domitian. Your friend John likewise will never leave Patmos alive. He will expire on his own, leaving me and Young Vespasian as the titular religious and political figureheads of the Roman Christian Empire. And your friends in Cappadocia—they can’t hole up in the caves forever under siege by our legions. At some point they’ll run out of food, then the legions will enter through Angel’s Pass and pick them off. We are done with the last apostle. It’s time for the first apostate.”

“Meaning you,” said Athanasius.

Ludlumus smiled. “As
Pontifex Maximus,
I will merge the Church with Rome. The empire will render unto Caesar what is his, and unto me what is mine.”

“And if I refuse to bow to you?”

“Then you die right here, right now,” Ludlumus said. “Consider my offer, Athanasius. Rome could use a man like you. Come to think of it, it already has, Chiron.”

Something terrible stirred in Athanasius at the moment as Ludlumus’s taunting cut him to the heart. It wasn’t rage or hatred. It was a kind of sentence in his spirit that had been rendered, a realization that Ludlumus his enemy was absolutely correct: Athanasius had indeed discovered the final secret of the Dei: that his idea of a Christian Rome was Ludlumus’s and Rome’s all along—and certainly not Jesus’s, who plainly said his kingdom is in Heaven. If he was guilty of nothing else, it was his attempt to use the Church to his own ends as much as Ludlumus. If his enemy was certainly not the better man here, neither was he.