Tigelanius read the charges, telling of the desecration of the bust of Emperor Nero, and-even worse-how Casca had claimed that he was more of a god than Nero and would outlast both Nero and Rome.
Oh, shit. They got me good, thought Casca.
Around the room the imperial toadies gasped at this blatant blasphemy. Nero had been leering at the form of Casca, stroking the head of a beautiful boy child beside the throne-to the obvious distaste of his wife sitting to the rear and reclining. When he heard the charges, Nero pulled a plug of hair out of the head of the young boy, stood up, kicked the boy away, then cursed because he had hurt his toe when he kicked the boy. He gave a short hop. His ingrown toenail made his eyes water. He turned on Casca.
'You ugly person, you! I was kind to you and set you free, and this is the way you repay me! I even lost money on you, you ugly person. You are really a distasteful-looking wretch with all those bulging muscles.' Nero felt a series of goosebumps run over his spine in spite of himself as he looked at the massive form of the kneeling Casca. 'You will learn that I am your god!' His voice began to reach for a piercing crescendo. 'I am your god!' he repeated, 'and I will judge you.' Gaining a modicum of self-control, he sat back down, froth speckling at his lips, his face flushed and spotty. 'You miserable dung heap.' He motioned for the guard to raise Casca's head so he could see his face.
Suddenly Nero's attitude changed, and his features took on a smug, almost prim look… as if he knew a secret. Folding his toga daintily over his arm, he looked down at Casca. 'I could have you torn to pieces by the beasts or burned alive a little every day for the next three or four years, but you have already said that you will outlast either myself or Rome. Well, then. You must be immortal, and as such you couldn't die, anyway. Therefore, my invincible warrior, since there can be only one immortal in Rome-and I already have that honorand since I shall not kill you, as that would not do any good, I am going to let you live in my service and Rome's. Yes. You shall serve me as an oar slave on the imperial galleys for as long as you may live. Your sentence is for life.'
His body shook with pleasure at his joke. Tears of joy came into his eyes. 'A life sentence for one who cannot die!' The hall rocked with the laughter of the senators as they followed their master's lead. 'For life, you ugly person, for life! Take him away.'
Casca was kicked and beaten away from the presence of the lord of Rome, Gaius Germanicus Nero…
TWENTY-THREE
Stroke, stroke, stroke came the beat of the gavel of the hortator. Endless times it seemed Casca followed these orders. His body moved with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. There was no wasted effort or motion, only the giant muscles rippling over his back. His beard reached to his chest as he rowed in sync with the other slaves.
The galley sliced the waters of the Mediterranean on her patrols and missions. The snap of the slave master's whip was a familiar sound that would jerk him from his sleep and automatically send his arms reaching for the oars. He served on the same ship until after the great fire when Rome burned. They were at sea, and the flames of the city were seen from the port of Ostia where the navy stood by ready to perform whatever service it might be ordered to do, but nothing came of it. Nero blamed the Christians; and Casca, when he heard the story, didn't put it past them. If they thought their judgment day was too long in coming, they just might try to hurry it up a bit. Anyway, Nero was the best friend they had because for every follower of the Jew he killed, two more seemed to spring up. Nero probably single-handedly doubled the number of Christians in the empire.
Two more ships Casca went through before the word of Nero's death came. Casca chuckled as he thought: One down, and an empire to go.
But if the news of Nero's death pleased Casca, it pleased the man next to him on the oars even more. This man had been a merchant who had failed to give a proper accounting. He loved to talk of his friends in high places and how they would soon set him free now that Galba was emperor. He delighted in the telling of Nero's history- probably because he also delighted in hearing the sound of his own voice. Casca listened. There wasn't much else to do when they lay at anchor. The merchant's voice assumed that slightly superior tone that some priests and lawyers use-or that women have when talking to people they consider their inferiors. The essence of his story was:
'Well, all things considered, Nero started off well enough. But the incipient degeneracy that he had kept hidden while under the control of his mother Agrippina soon vanished once he had the reins of power in his hands. He had been known to murmur to his friends that his mother needed to have her tongue stilled, so he did just that and had her murdered along with Britannicus, Claudius's legitimate son. Claudius had never renounced the boy even though the fact of his being sired by Claudius was open to conjecture, especially after Claudius had the mother killed for her infidelities.
'Unlike Claudius with his somewhat austere tastes, Nero leaned toward the opulence of decadent Greece and the Orient. By exercising the treason law he kept down any opposition to him, and he plundered the rich families through a form of imperial blackmail. But he soon had the empire in turmoil with uprisings against him in Britain led by Queen Boadicea eventually being crushed. However, other disturbances arose in ever-troublesome Parthia, and a disastrous defeat at Rhandeia led many provincial governors to rise against him, including Vindex in Gaul and Galba in Spain. Nero's last success was the detection and destruction of a plot against him by Gaius Piso, but at last even the Praetorian Guard could stand no more of the insanities and depravities of their sworn emperor, and they abandoned him. The simple act of their leaving him without their protection was enough to end his reign and he was forced to flee from Rome.
'Nero sought sanctuary, but found none. Everywhere his enemies were searching for him, and no friends could be found. In a poverty-stricken farmer's hut he fell upon his knife and, with the help of a slave, died in filth and poverty. The last of the Julio-Claudian emperors left the empire in rebellion and civil war.' The merchant finished his tale with obvious relish.
Casca felt a small sense of satisfaction at the news of Nero's death, but then a thought struck him, and he laughed out loud, startling his oar mate. 'What was it Nero said, there was room for only one immortal, and he already had that honor?' Casca laughed again, bitterly, drawing the oar master's attention to him and getting him another light dose of the lash in order to keep his mind on the oars. They were casting off. The drumming beat of the timer striking the drum with his mallets settled into his brain like a pulse throbbing in his temple. He let himself fall into the pattern, losing all track of time until the orders came to ship oars and the sails were run up so that the silent wind could do the job of the hundred and sixty slaves below. The oarsmen then collapsed over their oars, the old-timers controlling their breathing and letting their bodies relax, the new slaves often throwing up at what seemed to be the impossible strain of sending a hundred tons racking through the ocean with only men's backs for power. Casca recalled well the first galley he had slaved on. The oar master was a bitter and petty man who took pleasure in the pain of his helpless charges. On that galley Casca had added to his collection of thin hairline white crisscrossing scars on his back, scars that spoke reams about his years of service.
On one voyage his heart had jumped into his throat when he heard a familiar tinkling laugh come from the upper deck above. Shiu was on board! Straining his ears, Casca caught the words of the yellow man telling of his returning home to tell his brothers of the wonders he had seen and how there was one special person that he had met and loved like a son and hoped one day would find his way to Khitai…
Khitai… the word seemed like a dream to Casca. Good journey, old friend, Casca thought. It's best if you don't know where Iam. But you are right about things repeating. One day I will go to Khitai, and if you are not there, then there will be as you said one like you. Who knows? If I live long enough, perhaps I will see you in your reincarnation, for surely you would not come back as anything other than what you are now. Vale, old friend, vale…
They let Shiu off in Antioch where he followed the path of the great Alexander to the Indus river. Once there, the way to his home was open.
Casca was on a bireme out of Antium when Vesuvius blew and smothered Herculaneum and Pompeii beneath tons of ash and lava. The ashes reached the bireme far out at sea and turned the ship into a filthy mess of wet ash and powdered pumice that invaded everything from the pores of their skins to the food they ate. They sailed into Pompeii, amazed to see that the sea had pulled back and left the wharves bare to the sand. People by the hundreds tried to crowd on deck, but only those with permits issued by the harbor master were taken aboard. The rest had to
