The Last Sacrifice (2 page)

Sun

Hora Octava

The early afternoon sunshine blazed down on a large pen out of the sight of amphitheater spectators. The
bestiarius
began covering the eyes of the hobbled bull elephant he had selected to kill Gallus Sergius Vitas.

Perched on its neck, the beast master hummed as he did his work, patting the hide of the massive animal, trying to settle and soothe it. In his mind, he saw clearly how it would happen. He would remove the blinds only after he strapped Vitas to a tusk and led the beast to the center of the sand. Then, while two bears fought the elephant, another condemned man would be forced to dart between the elephant’s legs to release the chains that kept it hobbled. After the bears had killed the condemned man, and after the elephant had killed the bears with Vitas still on its tusk, it would finally redirect its rage to shake and scrape Vitas loose, then stomp him into a red smear. The process would, with luck, entertain the crowd for half an hour.

It was routine, actually, except that the man who was to die today once had Nero’s ear. So the bestiarius knew it needed to be done properly.

From below, a voice interrupted his thoughts: “Nero wants Vitas so close he can taste his blood.”

The bestiarius, a small, dirty man with no teeth, secured the blinders and patted the animal’s head before looking down to answer. At the side of the elephant, he saw the former slave most citizens in Rome recognized. Helius, Nero’s most trusted adviser.

In his late twenties, Helius was a beautiful man, with smooth, almost bronze skin. His hair was luxuriously curly, his eyes a strange yellow, giving him a feral look that was rumored to hold great attraction for Nero. Helius wore a toga edged with purple, and his fingers and wrists and neck were layered with jewelry of gold and rubies.

“Did you hear me?” Helius said, impatient. He sniffed the air cautiously and wrinkled his nose at the smell of the elephant.

The bestiarius would have answered any other man with derogative curses. “No man alive,” the bestiarius finally said, “can direct or predict the movements of a raging elephant.”

“Nor can any man dead,” Helius told him. “Make sure Nero is not disappointed.”

The bestiarius cautioned himself that this was Helius, who had almost as much power over the lives and deaths of Nero’s subjects as Nero himself. “I’ll have two women chained in the sand below the emperor’s place in the stands,” he said after a few moments’ thought. Once the bull was in a rage, he knew it would attack everything in sight, including those women. It would rear on hind legs and stomp with the full force of its weight, something that would surely excite Nero. The bestiarius would also strap Vitas on so tightly that the elephant would not be able to shake him loose too soon. That would bring Vitas in close enough to the emperor. “He will get the blood he wants.”

“Ensure that the women are Christians and see it’s done properly,” Helius snapped. “You don’t want me back here again.”

Nearby, but in a world removed from blue skies and fresh air, Gordio and Catus, the two soldiers assigned the task of finding and escorting Vitas, had already entered the labyrinth of prison cells below the stands of the amphitheater.

While both were large, Catus was the larger of the two. In the flickering light of the torch, they gave the appearance of brothers, each with dark, cropped hair, each with a wide face marked by battle scars. They were old for soldiers, sharing a common bond back to the days when they were both recruited from neighboring farms north of Rome, sharing survived battles in Britannia and Gaul and all the years of monotony between them.

As they traveled through the dark corridors by torchlight, the rumbling of the spectators above sounded like growls of distant thunder. Each soldier had drenched his face and shoulders with inexpensive perfume to mask the odor; each knew from experience that no other smell on earth matched the stench of fear exuded by hundreds of prisoners.

The torch Gordio carried was a beacon to all the prisoners, a flame serving notice that yet another among them would be plucked away for a horrible fate outside on the sunbaked sand. Halfway to the cell that held Vitas, a woman thrust her arms between iron bars in a useless effort to grasp at Gordio and Catus.

“Kill me!” the woman sobbed at them, her hands flailing. “I beg you!”

Neither of the soldiers broke stride.

“Have mercy!” she wailed at their broad backs. “Give me a sword or a knife. I’ll do it myself!”

Behind them, the woman’s pleading blended with the yells and groans and swearing of all the other men and women in the dozens of crowded, dank cells along their route. To Gordio and Catus, the men and women they were sent to retrieve for death were less than animals, troublesome debris, criminals deserving of their sentences.

“My fate is tied to yours,” Catus growled to Gordio. “I want you to say it again. We are in this together.”

“Yes, my friend,” Gordio said. “We are in this together. How can you doubt me after all the years we have shared?”

The answer was unnecessary, for if ever there was a time for one to doubt the other, this was it. Nothing during their years as soldiers serving the empire had prepared them for what they had resolved to do next.

The unthinkable.

Treason.

The chosen seat of the man who had been born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus placed him so close to the sand of the arena that on occasion blood would splatter his toga, spots of bright red soaking in and fading against the purple as they dried.

On this morning, slaves shaded and fanned him as he anticipated the death of Gallus Sergius Vitas. A ferocious hangover diminished some of his anticipation, and despite the efforts of the slaves, the heat irritated him. But not enough to drive him away before the death of Vitas.

He waited with a degree of impatience and swallowed constantly, trying to work moisture into his mouth. His thin blond hair failed to cover the beads of sweat on his scalp. He’d once been handsome, but closing on his thirtieth birthday, his face was already swollen from years of decadent wine and food, showing a chin that had doubled and was on the verge of trebling. His eyes were the most telling of the horrors he had inflicted on others during the previous decade—they had a dulled mania and an emptiness that bordered on eerie. Few dared to look fully into those eyes, and most shivered under their attention. For this was the man now known and worshiped by his subjects as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

Nero did not sit alone in the spectators’ box. To his right sat the boy Sporus, whose knee he touched casually; to his left, Helius, who had returned from the animal pens.

“How much longer until Vitas?” Nero said.

“Soon,” Helius said. A pause. Nero’s head throbbed as he concentrated on listening. Helius then spoke quietly. “Have you told Sporus about your intentions?”

Nero shifted, turning to face Helius fully. “You seem anxious for him to know.”

“The arrangements were your request,” Helius said. “What you want done is what you want done. But the doctors say it must be done soon, that any day now he will reach puberty.”

Nero frowned. “It seems you take pleasure in the procedure. Why should it matter to you when Sporus learns of it?”

“I’m only thinking of him,” Helius said, looking down in deference. “Perhaps it would be best to give the boy time to prepare himself.”

Nero turned away and, to disapproving murmurs from the crowd, kissed Sporus. He pulled back and stroked the boy’s hair for a few moments, then leaned over and spoke again to Helius.

“Prepare himself?” Nero asked. “Are you suggesting Sporus won’t be delighted to honor me in such a manner? that there will be anything of more magnitude in his life than my love for him?”

“He lives for you,” Helius said. Another deferent look downward. “As does every subject in the empire.”

“Of course they live for me,” Nero said, feeling his irritation lessened by the obsequious reminder of his power. He allowed a smile, thinking again of Vitas suffering on the tusk of an elephant. “Unless I want them to die.”

“Gallus Sergius Vitas,” the soldier with the torch said to the prisoner. The soldier spoke quietly, compassionately, respectfully.

The prisoner knew his moment was upon him. He hoped that all his preparations for death would be enough.

He had been deliberate in thinking it through. During the long night of waiting, this grim contemplation had prevented him from wondering about the pain of his final moments, from wondering about the method of execution that Nero had chosen for him. Meticulous planning helped him maintain an illusion of control in a situation where all power had been taken from him. And most importantly, focusing on how he would face death dispelled the doubts that pressed at the edge of his consciousness like snakes trying to push beneath a locked door, insidious questions about the faith he’d staked his life upon and whether that faith would lead him to the eternity he believed was beyond.

“If this is my time,” the prisoner replied, his voice barely more than a croak, “let me prepare myself.”

Without waiting for an answer, he moved against the wall and squatted to void his body wastes in the darkness. This was the first thing he’d decided was necessary. Aside from whatever bravery he could find as he faced the beasts in the amphitheater, no other dignity would remain when his naked body became an offering of entertainment to be shredded for the delighted scrutiny of a crowd of thousands; at the very least he did not want his body to betray his fear.

When he finished, sadness crushed him so badly he could barely breathe. The moment had arrived, and the emotion he had expected was far greater than he believed possible for a man to bear. Not fear but sadness. Sadness not for his death but that he would never see his wife or children again. It took all of his focus to push that sadness aside. It was not time to allow it to fill him. Not yet.

“I am ready,” the prisoner said. He moved closer to the torch, its light hardly more than a blur to him.

Clanking told him the soldiers were opening the cell door.

The blur of the torchlight grew brighter, and he heard both soldiers gasp.

“His face,” one said.

The day before he had been beaten so badly that his eyes were puffed shut to the point that he could barely see. His bruised face felt like an overripe fruit about to burst.

“Jupiter!” the other said.

The prisoner gave a weak wave and repeated himself. “I am ready.”

“We are not,” the second one said.

They stepped into the cell.

Had Nero given orders for him to be beaten further? the prisoner wondered. He took a deep breath and offered no resistance as he waited for the first blow.

“His face,” the first again. “That will make it difficult for him.”

“No. It will help. All he has to do is reach the streets. His face will make it impossible to guess his identity once he has escaped.”

“Escape?” the prisoner said. Thirst made his throat dry, and he found it difficult to speak without a croak. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

“Nero has gone too far,” the first said, his voice soft but firm. “All of Rome knows you are here. And the injustice behind it.”