The Chiron Confession (Dominium Dei) Read Free Page A

only credible source in his eyes to give him hope otherwise—Caelus—was gone, having failed to foresee even his own death.
    “And you, my chief protector!” Domitian glared at Secundus. “Your Praetorian in plain toga couldn’t even protect Caelus. How am I to believe you can protect me?”
    Secundus, realizing his own fate was on the line, spoke in a brave voice. “My man in Ephesus was but one in a city of villainy. Here in Rome, however, Your Highness has thousands of Praetorian surrounding you.”
    “Surrounding me! Who will protect me from your men? You all want me dead!”
    They continued to walk on in silence, only their steps echoing ominously like the inevitable march of doom. The tunnel was brilliantly lit by rows of torches on either side to ensure that no shadow could hide a would-be assassin. So great was Domitian’s fear.
    As usual, it was left to Ludlumus, a former actor and failed playwright, to break the silence with his gravelly yet soothing deep voice. “No doubt this lapse of security is unacceptable. Nor any doubt now that Caelus was a fraud. But neither tragedy should cast doubt upon your own destiny. If anything, your continued survival is proof yet again that the gods protect you, that you indeed are one of them. You cannot kill a god, despite what second-rate playwrights might like to believe.”
    “No doubt, no doubt,” Domitian murmured, annoyed that Ludlumus would use this moment to take yet another swipe at his former rival in the arts, Athanasius of Athens. “But Rome must make retribution for this public act against Caesar. We must therefore produce Chiron and execute him in public.”
    Domitian often spoke of himself in the third person when he felt threatened. This usually foreshadowed an order of execution of some kind, the object of which was any unfortunate fellow in his sight. In the last few years alone Domitian had executed a dozen prominent senators and countless noblemen in his Reign of Terror, if only to confiscate their fortunes to feed Rome’s swelling public debt. This was on top of the usual allotment of Jews and Christians. But the rise of this Dei insurgency was a new phenomenon altogether, and the shocking, public nature of Chiron’s recent assassinations had unhinged the emperor.
    “To be sure, it is time for Chiron to die,” Ludlumus said, halting for a moment, and then stated the obvious for Domitian’s own understanding. “But to kill Chiron, we must first produce him.”
    Domitian addressed his cousin the consul. “Clemens, what do we know about these butchers who call themselves Dominium Dei?”
    “Not much, Your Humanitas.”
    Clemens often addressed Domitian as the Merciful One, mostly in hopes of eliciting mercy on the Christians, of which his wife Domitilla was one and himself an inquirer at the least and sympathizer at worst in Domitian’s eyes.
    “No? Do they not receive secret instructions from the apostle John from his prison on Patmos?”
    “John is the last of the Jewish apostles, Your Highness. His influence is contained to Asia Minor. The Dei are non-Jews in make-up, the spiritual progeny of those Christian converts that the apostle Paul left behind before his beheading by Nero. For decades these followers, both slave and freedman, have kept their faith secret even as they have faithfully served the governments of successive Caesars. These recent public executions are a radical departure from their reputation.”
    “And you would know that because you are one of them?” Domitian suddenly offered, catching his cousin off guard.
    “What?” asked Clemens. “No!”
    “Everybody knows that your wife Domitilla—my niece—is one. Some even believe that you are this ‘Theophilus’ to whom the apostle Luke addressed his account of the life of Jesus.”
    “Caesar knows much,” Clemens said, neither confirming nor denying the rumors. “But the Christians here in Rome consider themselves successors not of the apostle Paul but of the