He ran his dry tongue over his teeth, touched his fingers together and squeezed his toes to confirm he still possessed these and other bodily appendages. The warden and guards would have killed him on the spot were he not already condemned to a public execution. To deny the mob its entertainment seemed a worse crime than murder in Rome.
Athanasius ruminated over his sorry twist of fate and what would become of Helena. I have become the very tragic hero that I mock in my comedies, he thought. Now only my ghost will haunt the Pompey like Julius Caesar — if Pliny can figure a way Rome can profit from it. Athanasius could already hear the tour operators: “He killed the gods in his plays only to be killed by their wrath. Hear ye and be warned, citizens of Rome!” That’s how he would play it, and raise the tour price. Two ghosts were better than one, and the new one should at least bring a sense of humor. Yes, Pliny would make sure of it.
But the thought passed as he realized the cold, cruel truth that while it might keep him alive to some, his body would decompose in the earth, or be fed to dogs, and the glory and immortality he sought as a playwright would die with him in the grave.
Surely, this cannot be the end. This was too rushed, his epic poem cut short. Now he would be the butt of jokes.
Could he hang himself in his chains? Get a guard to fetch him poison? Yes, Helena or Pliny might smuggle him some. That would be better than whatever sort of entertainment Ludlumus was planning to extinguish him in. The famous Death Relay, perhaps, to humiliate him by not singling him out for execution but by making him a bit player?
This was it, he feared — the greatest horror of the Games, to not even be the center of attention. He would not die an infamous death, but a relatively anonymous one. Surely the cruelest death of all.
It didn’t matter. Rome had won, because Rome had had the last word on him.
Or had it? Perhaps there was something he could say, or signal at his death, so that he got the last word in, somehow. Some small triumph, even if it was spelled out with his own blood on the white sand of the arena floor.
He thought of September 18, mere months away, and gnashed his teeth that he should perish so close to the prophesied end of Domitian, if only it were so.
He thought of Helena and his family in Corinth. The Romans always went after family. He was worried that he had not lived well, which was the most important thing to him in life. Socrates took the poison. He, on the other hand, bowed before Caesar to save himself, betraying himself and his ideals. He rationalized that it was for Helena. But if it was for Helena, then it was for himself.
He was tormented most of all by questions. Why him? What could he have written that was worthy of death? Why on earth the accusation of Chiron?
None of it made any sense.
It’s over. The show is over, like Ludlumus said.
There were plays I have yet to write, a life with Helena I have yet to live. What will happen to her? Who will provide for her? What will happen to my plays? My body of work? He knew he was spinning out of control.
Calm down, Athanasius. Perhaps there is still a way out of this. There must be a way. Even on the arena floor. Something to get the mob to move Caesar’s hand and make him an exception.
Oh, Jupiter, he prayed. Spare me, and I will serve you. I will never mock you again under any name. I will write plays for you, and mock those like me who mock you. People will buy your idols and make sacrifices to you.
He knew it was pure magic, the kind of pointless prayer that Helena made to gods who were not there but figments of imagination. But he took comfort in knowing she was praying for him too.
And then, as if by magic, he heard a noise outside the door. A key rattled in the lock.
A faint flicker of hope began to stir inside him. Perhaps Domitian wished to show himself generous and merciful! Perhaps Pliny and Maximus had bargained him a reprieve, an offer to write a glorious ode to Domitian in exchange for freedom! Or even just Helena to say her goodbye. To see her face one last time would be enough.
Yes, perhaps salvation had come.
The door swung open, the light of a torch splashing on the dirty floor, and in walked Ludlumus.
“Third-act trouble, Athanasius?”
Athanasius propped his tired back against the wet wall and sunk his head on his chest in despair.
Ludlumus shut the door and hung the oil lamp on an iron hook nailed to the ceiling. The effect cast light on him like an actor on the stage. He removed a clay tablet and stylus from the fold of his toga.
Athanasius spoke in a dry, cracked voice. “You’re the one who will pray for deus ex machina, Ludlumus. It’s only a matter of time before Domitian does to you what he’s done to me.”
“So that’s your confession, Athanasius? You are innocent and Caesar is guilty?”
“Yes.”
Athanasius could feel Ludlumus stare at him thoughtfully, and then watched him put away the tablet and stylus. Whatever was about to be said, he realized, was not going to be recorded.
“And how did you come to this conclusion?”
“Motive,” Athanasius said. “For all his so-called evidence, Regulus never established a believable motive for me to be Chiron. I, on the other hand, have found two personal motivations for Domitian to get rid of me.”
“Tell me.”
“Either Domitian wants to get his hands on Helena for himself, or he wants to keep me out of the hands of his wife Domitia.”
“I’m impressed, Athanasius. You figured this all out here in the dark?”
“So which is it?”
“It doesn’t matter, Athanasius. Did you really believe you could pen comedies about the rape and death of gods and get away with it? Domitian needs no personal motivation. Your own works are reason enough to execute you.”
“Then why bother accusing me of being this Christian terrorist Chiron? It makes no sense. Executing me doesn’t rid Rome of the real Chiron. Unless…”
“Unless what, Athanasius?”
Athanasius knew he had struck a nerve. “Unless, of course, you are Chiron.”
Ludlumus began to laugh at the joke, as if he wished he had come up with that one himself. “Not quite, Athanasius. But you are very close.”
“Then it’s Domitian.”
“Try again.”
Now Ludlumus was cruelly teasing him. Athanasius was out of suspects. Then it struck him, an idea so simple and horrific he wondered how he didn’t think of it first.
“There is no Chiron, is there, Ludlumus? You invented him.”
Ludlumus actually clapped his hands. “Bravo, Athanasius.”
Athanasius began to breathe faster, his mind racing. His hunch about Chiron was right, but it didn’t explain everything. “Why? How? You certainly didn’t invent Dominium Dei, did you? How could you? It’s been around for decades.”
“True, but instead of the Dei infiltrating Rome, Rome has infiltrated the Dei. Now Caesar can assassinate senators or other threats to the empire and pin the blame on Christians, whom we then feed to the Games. It’s all economical.”
“Economical?!” Athanasius exclaimed.
“All right then, let’s call it… poetic,” Ludlumus said. “Like the poetry of the Flavian Amphitheater itself. Rome’s temple of death was financed with the treasures that Vespasian looted from the Jews after Titus destroyed their great temple almost 30 years ago. Of course, the Judean War cost a million lives on both sides. So to pacify the mobs back home, the Flavians built their eponymous coliseum as a political weapon. By making the Games the center of our universe, they’ve practically been getting away with anything else ever since.”
“So the Dei is an imperial organization, not Christian,” Athanasius stated for his own understanding. “Only the Christians don’t know it, do they?”