Empire (15 page)

“Truly identical, in every way?”

“Yes.”

“Show us.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Show us. Caesonia wants to see, and so do I.”

“I don’t understand,” said Titus, his heart sinking.

“I think you do. Stand up and take off your togas, both of you.”

Titus and Kaeso exchanged pained glances. Neither moved.

Caligula sighed. “Please don’t be tiresome. You really have no choice. It is a god who asks this of you.”

“This is most improper,” said Kaeso.

“Improper?” Caligula seemed more amused than angry. “Do you see the armed men standing over there, beside the pillars? Why do you think they’re there? Well?”

“To protect the emperor,” said Titus, his mouth dry.

Caligula laughed. “The emperor is a god and needs no protection. Those men are here to enforce the emperor’s will, when those in the emperor’s presence are slow to obey him. Do I need to call on them now? They will use whatever force is necessary.”

Titus glanced at the faces of the guards. Perhaps this was all a game, a test of some sort, he thought, until he saw the looks on their faces. His blood turned cold.

Titus was so light-headed that he could hardly stand. He gestured for Kaeso to do likewise. When Kaeso hesitated, Titus grabbed his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. Trying to maintain an air of unconcern, as if he were alone in his own room, Titus began to unwind his toga. Normally a slave helped a master to put on his toga and to take it off as well. Titus’s hands were clumsy; the soft wool seemed determined to thwart him. He tripped over the toga and almost fell before he managed to extract himself from it, and in the process lost any pretense of dignity. Pulling the tunic over his head was easier. He stood upright, wearing only his loincloth.

Caligula and Caesonia stared at Titus intently, then turned their attention to Kaeso, who lagged behind. Eventually Kaeso stood in only his loincloth, next to his brother. At the far ends of the two couches, Artemisia and Chrysanthe were so still and quiet that they might have turned to stone.

“Go on,” said Caligula. “We must see everything.”

His face flushed, his hands trembling, Titus undid his loincloth and let it fall. Except for his shoes and the fascinum at his breast, he stood naked. From the corner of his eye he saw Kaeso drop his loincloth as well.

“Extraordinary!” Caligula rose from his couch and examined them more closely, peering at them as if they were statues, or slaves for purchase. “It is said that the gods never make two pearls, or even two peas in a
pod, so alike that a man cannot tell them apart, and yet I would defy anyone to distinguish between the two of you. What do you think, Caesonia?”

“All shriveled up like that, any two members might look alike. I think we will have to see them in a state of arousal.”

“Dominus, this is not right!” said Titus, his voice cracking. “Send away our wives, at least.”

“But your wives are essential to the experiment.”

Caesonia stood facing the brothers. She reached out and began to fondle them both at once. Titus gasped and closed his eyes. Though he would not have thought it possible, he began to respond. He felt the blood engorging his member, and little thrills of pleasure from Caesonia’s touch.

Apparently Kaeso had responded as well, for Caligula clapped his hands and laughed with delight. “Still exactly the same! Identical in every respect! Can you detect any difference, Caesonia? Weigh them each in your hand. Measure the girth and the length. Examine them carefully for blemishes or other distinguishing marks.”

Titus opened his eyes. Caesonia looked very pleased with herself and with the effect she was having on them. His head felt lighter than air and his legs were weak, but there was no denying the pleasure she was inducing in him.

“No difference at all!” Caesonia announced.

“Ah, but the hand, delicate as it may be, is an insensitive instrument compared to the lips and the tongue. Is that not true, Caesonia, based on your experience?”

“Dominus, please!” Titus begged, his voice weak. “For the emperor’s wife to do what you suggest—”

“Shut your filthy mouth!” shouted Caligula. His sudden rage made Titus blanch, yet he felt himself grow even stiffer in Caesonia’s hand. “How dare you suggest such a thing? Caesonia is mine and mine alone. The very idea that she would lower herself to such an act with a mortal like you is disgusting.”

“Dominus, if I misunderstood—”

“You certainly did! Guards, bring blindfolds for these two women. And bring gags for their husbands, to keep them quiet during the experiment.”

“Dominus, what experiment?”

Caligula rolled his eyes, like a tutor with a stupid pupil. “We are going to see if your own wives can tell you apart, of course! First, we shall blindfold the women. Then we shall stand the two of you back to back. Next, we will spin your blindfolded wives around until they lose all sense of direction, then push them to their knees. Finally, your wives will show us if they can tell the difference—using only their mouths—between one twin and the other.”

The events unfolded exactly as Caligula desired. Moment by moment, Titus’s fear and humiliation were matched only by his unflagging excitement. At times he felt as if he had left his body and was floating above the scene, a mere observer of the degrading spectacle taking place below. Drawing close to form a cordon around them, the guards observed everything. Occasionally one of them snickered or grunted, and several times, when Titus was slow to cooperate, something sharp jabbed his throat or his chest or some exposed part of his body normally hidden from sight. Caesonia frequently giggled and whispered to the emperor, who oversaw the experiment with childlike delight.

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 Savior, 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. Hs 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 rumor 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.