Robert Silverberg - With Caesar in the Underworld

And then, very quickly, Heraclius made an end of it. “I hope we have an opportunity to meet again very shortly,” the prince said, arbitrarily terminating the visit with such suddenness that even the quick-witted Menandros was caught off guard by his blunt dismissal, and Faustus heard a tiny gasp from him. “To my regret, I will have to leave the city again tomorrow. But upon my return, at the earliest opportunity—” And he held forth his ringed hand to be kissed again.

Menandros said, when they were outside and waiting for their litters to be brought, “May we speak frankly, my friend?”

Faustus chuckled. “Let me guess. You found the Caesar to be less than engaging.”

“I would use some such phrase, yes. Is he always like that?”

“Oh, no,” Faustus said. “He’s ordinarily much worse. He was on his best behavior for you, I’d say.”

“Indeed. Very interesting. And this is to be the next Emperor of the West. Word had reached us in Constantinopolis, you know, that the Caesar Heraclius was, well, not altogether charming. But—even so—I was not fully prepared—”

“Did you mind very much kissing his ring?”

“Oh, no, not at all. One expects, as an ambassador, to have to show a certain deference, at least to the Emperor. And to his son as well, I suppose, if he requires it of one. No, Faustus, what I was struck by—how can I say this?—let me think a moment—” Menandros paused. He looked off into the night, at the Forum and the Capitol far across the valley. “You know,” he said at last, “I’m a relatively young man, but I’ve made a considerable study of Imperial history, both Eastern and Western, and I think I know what is required to be a successful Emperor. We have a Greek word— charisma, do you know it?—it is something like your Latin word virtus, but not quite—that describes the quality that one must have. But there are many sorts of charisma. One can rule well through sheer force of personality, through the awe and fear and respect that one engenders—Justinianus is a good example of that, or Vespasianus of ancient times, or Titus Gallius. One can rule through a combination of great personal determination and guile, as the great Augustus did, and Diocletianus. One can be a man of grace and deep wisdom—Hadrianus, say, or Marcus Aurelius. One can win acclaim through great military valor: I think of Trajan here, and Gaius Martius, and your two Emperors who bore the name Maximilianus. But”—and again Menandros paused, and this time he drew in his breath deeply before continuing—“if one has neither grace, nor wisdom, nor valor, nor guile, nor the capability to engender fear and respect—”

“Heraclius will be able to engender fear, I think,” said Faustus.

“Fear, yes. Any Emperor can do that, at least for a time. Caligula, eh? Nero. Domitianus. Commodus.”

“The four that you name were all eventually assassinated, I think,” Faustus said.

“Yes. That is so, isn’t it?” The litters were arriving, now. Menandros turned to him and gave him a serene, almost unworldly smile. “How odd it is, Faustus, would you not say, that the two royal brothers are so far from being alike, and that the one who has charisma is so little interested in serving his Empire as its ruler, and the one who is destined to have the throne has so little charisma? What a pity that is: for them, for you, perhaps, even, for the world. It is one of the little jokes that the gods like to play, eh, my friend? But what the gods may find amusing is not so amusing for us, sometimes.”

There was no visit to the Underworld the following day. From Menandros came a message declaring that he would remain in his quarters all that day, preparing dispatches to be sent to Constantinopolis. The Caesar Maximilianus likewise sent word to Faustus that his company would not be required that day. Faustus spent it dealing with the copious outpouring of routine documents his own office endlessly generated, holding his regular midweek meeting with the other functionaries of the Chancellery, soaking for several hours at the public baths, and dining with the little bright-eyed Numidian, who watched him wordlessly across the table for an hour and a half, eating very little herself—she had the appetite of a bird, a very small bird—and following him obligingly to the couch when the meal was done. After she had gone he lay in bed reading, at random choice, one of the plays of Seneca, the gory Thyestes, until he came upon a passage he would just as soon not have seen that evening: “I live in mighty fear that all the universe will be broken into a thousand fragments in the general ruin, that formless chaos will return and vanquish the gods and men, that the earth and sea will be engulfed by the planets wandering in the heavens.” Faustus stared at those words until they swam before his eyes. The next lines rose up before him, then: “Of all the generations, it is we who have been chosen to merit the bitter fate, to be crushed by the falling pieces of the broken sky.” That was unappealing bedtime reading. He tossed the scroll aside and closed his eyes.

And so, he thought, passes another day in the life of Faustus Flavius Constantinus Caesar. The barbarians are massing at the gates, the Emperor is dying day by day, the heir apparent is out in the forest poking spears into hapless wild beasts, and old Faustus shuffles foolish official papers, lolls half a day in a great marble tub of warm water, amuses himself for a while with a dusky plaything of a girl, and stumbles upon evil omens as he tries to read himself to sleep.

The next day commenced with the arrival of one of Menandros’s slaves, bearing a note telling him that it was the ambassador’s pleasure to carry out a third exploration of the subterranean city in midafternoon. He had a special interest, Menandros said, in seeing the chapel of Priapus and the pool of the Baptai, and perhaps the catacomb of the sacred whores of Chaldea. The ambassador’s mood, it seemed, had taken an erotic turn.

Quickly Faustus dashed off a note to the Caesar Maximilianus, telling him of the day’s plans and requesting him to summon Danielus bar-Heap the Hebrew once more to be their guide. “Let me know by the sixth hour where you would like us to meet you,” Faustus concluded. But midday came and went with no reply from the prince. A second message produced no response either. By now it was nearly time for Faustus to set out for the Severan Palace to pick up the ambassador. It was beginning to look as though he would be Menandros’s sole escort on today’s expedition. But Faustus realized then that he did not care for that idea: he felt too dour this morning, too cheerless and morose. He needed Maximilianus’s high-spirited company to get him through the task.

“Take me to the Caesar,” he told his bearers.

Maximilianus, unbathed, unshaven, red-eyed, wearing a coarse old robe with great rents in it, looked startled to see him. “What is this, Faustus? Why do you come to me unannounced?”

“I sent two notes this morning, Caesar. We are to take the Greek to the Underworld again.”

The prince shrugged. Clearly he hadn’t seen either one. “I’ve been awake only an hour. And had only three hours of sleep before that. It’s been a difficult night. My father is dying.”

“Yes. Of course. We have all been aware of that sad fact for some time and are greatly grieved by it,” said Faustus unctuously. “Perhaps it will come as a deliverance when His Majesty’s long ordeal is—”

“I don’t mean simply that he’s sick. I mean that he’s in his last hours, Faustus. I’ve been in attendance on him all night at the palace.”

Faustus blinked in surprise. “Your father is in Roma?”

“Of course. Where do you think he’d be?”