Gore Vidal’s Caligula Read Free

figure raised its hand and pushed the veil from its face. Little Caligula’s eyes widened in horror. He saw a face ancient and mottled with sores, its teeth long and wolfish, its gray brows thickly menacing over eyes that glittered with malicious evil.
    “Hail to the father of Germanicus! Hail Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome!” shouted the crowd, but there was no warmth in the shout, only fear. The fear was magnified a thousandfold by the pounding of the child’s heart; with sinking horror he saw his grandfather reach out for him. He felt himself being lifted into the air, carried closer and closer to those glittering deadly eyes . . . closer and closer to that leprous face . . .
    He screamed.
    He screamed and screamed, his thin body convulsing in the bed, his limbs thrashing with fear.
    “Gaius! Gaius!”
    Caligula opened his eyes, blinking, and shook his head to clear it of the black mists of the Dream. Beside him, Drusilla turned up the wick of the silver lamp, then threw her arms around him, soothing his trembling form.
    He’s soaking wet, she thought, pulling him closer to her. He’s cold as snow and covered in sweat. “Hush, hush,” she crooned, as to a baby. “It’s just a dream . . .”
    “He’ll kill me,” muttered Caligula, his face pressed against his sister’s warm breasts.
    “No, no, you’re safe.” Drusilla rocked him in her arms. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”
    Pulling away from her embrace, he looked up at her. “What makes you think I’m safe when I’m with you?” he asked with a bitter smile.
    Drusilla smiled back at her baby brother, her large blue eyes searching his in the lamplight. They had the same eyes, these two, Germanicus’ eyes, but where Germanicus’ gaze had been steady and unafraid, Caligula’s was wide with apprehension.
    “All right, you’re not safe,” Drusilla conceded with a light laugh. “I only wanted to . . .” She broke off as she noticed that Caligula’s thin shoulders were still shaking. Mopping the sweat from his cheeks and brow with a corner of the sheet, she asked him gently, “The same dream?”
    Caligula nodded wordlessly. There were no words for the Dream.
    “Our father’s funeral?” Her voice was very soft.
    Caligula drew in a deep, shuddering breath and nodded again.
    Drusilla was familiar with the Dream, with all but the deepest terror of it.
    “And the Emperor picks you up . . .” she whispered.
    Her brother shuddered like a leaf in the wind. He remembered the glittering eyes, the sharp edges of the yellow teeth, the strong old fingers like vulture’s claws.
    “But then what happens?” The Dream had never ended, as far back as Drusilla remembered. And Gaius had been dreaming it for so many of his twenty-six years.
    “I wake up,” replied Caligula hoarsely. “Just before he kills me the way he killed . . .”
    Drusilla put a warning finger to her lips. Tiberius’ spies were everywhere; she wouldn’t be surprised if Gaius’ own bedroom were being spied upon. Only a little hole bored through the wall, the smallest, most unnoticeable little hole, was all that Tiberius needed to gather his slimy evidence.
    Drawing closer to his sister, Caligula clung to her tightly, more a son now than a lover. Whispering into her golden, love-tousled hair, he reminded her, “He killed our father. Our mother. Our brothers.”
    “Shhhhh,” murmured Drusilla. These words were unsafe. Tiberius had tortured and killed hundreds, perhaps even thousands, and for smaller offenses than Caligula had whispered.
    “I don’t want to die.” Caligula’s words were muffled by the soft flesh of Drusilla’s breasts.
    “You won’t,” she told him firmly. “You can’t. You’re his heir. There’s no one else.”
    “There’s the boy,” frowned Caligula. He meant Tiberius Gemellus, the Emperor’s real grandson, a blood relation, even though he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Little bastard, he thought. Someday I’ll kill